Tales of the Galactic Empire: Survivor
by Cmdr's Monkey
Summary: This is the story of Colonel Veers survival on Yavin IV shortly after the Battle of Yavin
1. Author Notes

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Author: CmdrMitthrawnuruodo

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Email: cmdrmitth@mindspring.com

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Rating: PG-13, contains gruesome and violent scenes

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Title: Tales of the Galactic Empire: Survivor

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Summary: This is the story of one man's survival on a dangerous and enemy occupied planet. Stranded on the fourth moon of Yavin shortly after the Battle of Yavin, Colonel Maximilian Veers must survive the harsh jungle and avoid capture by the fleeing Rebel Alliance. Can he survive and stay free until the Imperial fleet arrives?

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Characters: Original Characters, Colonel Maximilian Veers, and Exar Kun. 

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Timeline: Immediately after the Battle of Yavin

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Status: Incomplete, working on Chapter 18

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Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or the established EU characters used in this story. George Lucas owns the franchise and Kevin J. Anderson owns the EU established characters seen in this story. This story is not being sold or distributed to make me any money or any other form of profit. This story was solely created for my own entertainment and the entertainment of other Star Wars fans. So don't sue me cause then I won't have money to buy the lovely action figures and the starships Kenner makes or the books Del Ray publishes!

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Notes: Some of this story may not be consistent with the established Expanded Universe and the backgrounds created for the characters. At the time this story was first begun, I had not researched thoroughly into the characters and events involved in this story OR there was no information to be found and I had to come up with my own theories. One day I plan on rewriting the scenes that contain inconsistencies so that the entire story fits with the established Expanded Universe.

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Story Progress

Part I: Survivor

Chapter I - Evacuate

Chapter II – Crash Landing

Chapter III – Piranha Attack

Chapter IV – Another One Bites the Dust

Chapter V – Skulls & Bones

Chapter VI – Rebel Sighting

Chapter VII – Die Rebel! Die!

Chapter VIII - Standoff

Part II: Seduction

Chapter IX – Nightmares & Dark Lords

Chapter X – An Offer You Can't Refuse

Chapter XI – "It's Contaminated"

Chapter XII – Rescued At Last?

Chapter XIII – In Rebel Hands

Chapter XIV – The Lecturer Lectures

Chapter XV – A Bought Soul

Chapter XVI – Deja Vu

Part III: Struggle

Chapter XVII – Tomb of Fire

Chapter XVIII – COMING SOON

Chapter XIX – COMING SOON

Chapter XX – COMING SOON

Chapter XXI – COMING SOON

Chapter XXII – COMING SOON

Chapter XXIII – COMING SOON

Chapter XXIV – COMING SOON

Prologue


	2. Evacuate

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Tales of the Galactic Empire

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Survivor

This is the story of one man's survival on a dangerous and enemy occupied planet. Stranded on the fourth moon of Yavin shortly after the Battle of Yavin, Colonel Maximilian Veers must survive the harsh jungle and avoid capture by the fleeing Rebel Alliance. Can he survive and stay free until the Imperial fleet arrives? 

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Part I

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Stranded

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Chapter I - Evacuate

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DAY ONE

"Are you certain?" Colonel Veers questioned the technician currently hunched over a flat datascreen imbedded into a console. It currently showed a two-dimensional image of the Death Star's layout and a red line highlighted a trench in the Northern Hemisphere, a trench that was currently witnessing a space battle between Imperial and Rebel starfighters. The very same Rebel starfighters had a certain interest with the trench. 

Veers had heard several reports from the TIE Ops Center that several starfighters had dove into the trench on a strafing run. But they weren't attacking the surface, just flying and following the trench. To where, the Colonel feared the worse.

"Yes, Colonel." The technician replied. "If the Rebels continue to fly along the trench they will come across a thermal exhaust port. It is one of the station's critical ports that dispel the heat directly from the core. It is ray shielded so their lasers won't do any good, but the thermal exhaust port was not equipped with a particle shield since it would prevent the exhaust port from doing its primary job, dissipating the heat."

"Could the Rebels shoot a proton torpedo into the exhaust port?" Veers asked, his worse fears suddenly coming true.

"It is possible sir, but highly unlikely."

"What would happen should a Rebel succeed?"

"It would uh…in theory…destroy the station." The technician stumbled over his answer in disbelief. The very idea that a single proton torpedo could possibly destroy this station, the ultimate power of the Galactic Empire, was nearly impossible to believe.

But Colonel Veers believed it and feared that is what the rebels were aiming to accomplish. Why else would they send all of their starfighters against something the size of a small moon, knowing they would just be committing suicide, unless they had found a critical weakness?

"Chief Bast!" Veers called out urgently and against proper procedure. _To hell with procedure. _He thought as Chief Bast, the head of the Death Star's engineering and technical staff, approached the Colonel and the technician.

"Yes, Colonel, what is it?" Bast sounded unhappy that he was being disturbed from whatever he was doing a moment ago.

"Sir, I believe we found what the Rebels are trying to do." Colonel Veers and the technician then quickly explained what they both had discovered. Chief Bast's face blanched at the revelation. The same idea had never crossed his mind just like everyone else onboard the station. 

Except for Colonel Veers and a very few others.

It was his job to analyze the enemy's attack strategy and find a counter-strategy, then deploy it through whatever resources he or his superiors had available. Although he was an officer of the Army, he was on board a space station and therefore it was his responsibility to defend it. Even though the battle being fought was in space. 

"Sir, I suggest we evacuate as many personnel and soldiers as possible just in case they do succeed in destroying the station." Veers suggested. _Better safe than sorry._ He thought.

"I agree. I'll go and inform the Governor of your discovery." Bast replied and left to talk to Tarkin.

A minute later Chief Bast returned to the Colonel's side. He didn't look too pleased about something. "The Governor has denied an immediate evacuation. He thinks we overestimate their chances."

"His stubbornness is going to get us all killed." Veers replied quietly. "We should evacuate just in case."

"I do have the authority to evacuate my people, but as for the troopers and everyone else. Its up to General Tagge or Admiral Motti."

"Is something wrong, gentlemen?" The voice of General Tagge asked. Colonel Veers cleared his throat, knowing that Tagge would listen to him since it was he who strongly feared that the Rebels could find a weakness in the station. Veers explained that weakness to the man.

"I see. Has the Governor been informed?"

"Yes, but he refuses to evacuate." Bast answered.

"Do you strongly believe that the Rebels will succeed?" Tagge asked. It was proper procedure to get as much information as possible before making a decision on an order, such as evacuating a space station that has one in a million chance of being destroyed.

"Yes." Bast answered before Colonel Veers could. "All it takes is one torpedo to get through and we are all gone."

Tagge nods in agreement. For the next thirty seconds he looked thoughtful as he decided on whether to make the call or not. After half a minute later he gave his answer. "We evacuate."

"Yes, sir." Both men acknowledged in union.

Veers turned to the technician. "Are you critically needed to run the station?" He asked and the technician shook his head no in reply. "Then get to an escape pod or a shuttle." 

"Yes, sir."

"Commander!" General Tagge called.

"Sir?"

"Order an evacuation of the station. All non-essential personnel are to leave the station and assume a polar orbit around Yavin until either the danger has passed or the fleet arrives."

"Yes, General, sir." The commander replied slightly confused, but followed his orders to the letter.

"General! Lord Vader reports there are three starfighters attempting an attack run in the trench." A TIE Ops officer reports.

"T-minus five minutes until planetary target is within range." A monotone voice over the speaker system announced, soon followed by the shrill sirens of the evacuation alarms and the voice of the commander.

"All non-essential personnel are to evacuate the station. I repeat all non-essential personnel are to evacuate the station."

"It's time we go, Colonel." Chief Bast said, then as an after thought he turns to the General. "Sir, will you be joining us?"

"No, I'll stay with the Governor as long as possible."

"Very well, sir." Colonel Veers said, disappointed, and then left the General to evacuate.


	3. Crash Landing

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Chapter II - Crash Landing

"T-minus thirty seconds and counting." The intercom of the Imperial shuttle announced just as it began an approach vector toward Yavin that would put it in a polar orbit. Colonel Maximilian Veers glanced eagerly out the portside window to see if he could see the space battle above the station.

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"I have you now!" Exclaimed the mechanical voice of Lord Vader. Veers saw a series of green flashes and then a small explosion as a starfighter blew up. _"What the…?"_

"Look out!" Another tiny explosion was seen and then all comm traffic ceased from the TIE fighters.

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"You're all clear kid! Take the shot and let's go home!" An unidentified voice exclaimed in excitement followed by a very familiar Wookiee howl.

After a moment of silence the same voice returned over the comm system. _"Great shot kid, that was one in a million!"_

"Oh no." Veers whispered, fearing the worse has just happened. "By the Emperor, please don't let it be true."

But it was. The Rebels had succeeded in doing the impossible.

The Death Star exploded in a fiery display.

All aboard the vessel stared in shock and horror at the tragedy that they were witnessing. None paid attention to the sudden approach of the super-sonic shockwave until it was nearly on top of them.

"Evasive actions!" Veers exclaimed and clutched tightly onto his restraints just as the shockwave impacted against the shuttlecraft. His teeth clicked together sharply and rattled along with every mechanical part of the shuttle. The stars and the gas giant outside swirled past the viewscreen several times, making the Colonel dizzy and sick to the stomach.

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If I wanted to ride a maglev-coaster I would have stayed home with Zevulon and took him to the amusement park! Ugh, make it stop already! He thought sarcastically, the contents of his stomach trying to fight its way up. 

"I think I'm gonna puke!" A young enlistee in the back of the shuttle moaned and the sounds of someone regurgitating soon followed.

Lights in the cabin of the shuttle flickered on and off. The sounds of metal under stress echoed throughout the ship, sending new fears into all of its passengers. If the joy ride didn't stop any time soon, the pressure of the shockwave would tear the ship apart. 

Colonel Veers clenched his eyes tight and gripped harder onto his restraints. Images of his family and his life flashed before him as he thought this would be his last flight through space. He didn't want to go this way. He had his own death planned out for him, he wanted to die in retirement on some backwater world doing who knows what retired officers do or die in the glory of battle on the ground.

Not like this.

When he thought the shuttle was about to split apart, he felt himself shoved into his seat as if 4Gs were pressing against him, pinning his entire body in place. Then the creaking sounds of metal and the emergency wail of the collision alarm ceased abruptly.

It took him a moment to realize that the ride had stopped and longer to understand why he felt lighter than air. _The inertial dampners must be damaged._ He concluded silently to himself and then out loud he said: "Everyone alright?"

His answers were several miserable groans.

Veers unhooked himself from his seat and floated freely out of it. Using the back of the chair as a push board, he flew for the cockpit to check on the pilots. Halting himself between the doorframe he could already see that one of the pilots had fainted and the other was holding his stomach groaning.

"Can this thing still fly?" He asked as soon as the conscious pilot pulled himself together. The pilot obediently began to do a systems check on the vessel. After what seemed like an eternity he came up with the answer.

It wasn't one Veers was looking for.

"We can still fly, sir. But the hyperdrive has been damaged." The pilot answered. "We're stuck until the fleet arrives." The pilot hesitated whatever he was going to add to the end of the sentence.

"What else?" Veers reluctantly asked.

"We also have been knocked off our original course straight for the jungle moon and life support is down to 40%." The pilot answered again. "If the fleet doesn't get here any time soon we'll have to land on Yavin IV."

"Full of rebel terrorists that would gladly kill us or capture us." Veers added diffidently. He was just about to leave the cockpit to check on the passengers when a light on the console in front of the co-pilot began demanding for someone's attention. "What now?"

"Starfighters!" The pilot announced. "They are heading straight for us!"

"Get us out of here!" Veers ordered forcefully and only had enough time to push himself down into the seat behind the pilot before the man jerked the shuttle sharply away from the gas giant and directly for… "Where are you going?"

"We can't go anywhere else but to the moon. Its our only chance, sir."

Ruby red laser blasts silenced Veers complaint about going further into enemy territory. Again the Colonel found himself in another ride as the shuttle, without an inertial dampner, juked and jinked to avoid enemy fire. The jungle moon of Yavin grew larger as the pilot raced for safety.

An X-wing starfighter overshot the shuttlecraft and into the sights of the Imperial vessel. It turned sharply to port and came around for another pass, four ruby laser blasts impacted into the side of the shuttle. Knocking Veers into the side of his seat roughly.

"Can't this thing go any faster?" Veers complained.

"I'm putting everything I can into it. Shields are down 68%." The pilot informed out of habit then pulled the shuttle into a thirty degree decent as soon as it began to enter the moon's atmosphere. The starfighters relentlessly pursued them, hammering away at the rear shielding of the vessel.

Something in the back of the shuttle exploded and smoke began to fill the cabin. Veers coughed and choked on the filthy air and glanced up to stare out the viewscreen of the cockpit. Before them and rapidly approaching was the canopy of the jungle treetops.

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Oh kriff! Were his last thoughts before the smoking vessel crashed to the surface.


	4. Piranha Attack

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Chapter III - Piranha Attack

Something like a cricket chirped in his right ear. _Odd sound to hear on the Death Star. _Colonel Veers thought and coughed a couple times. _I should have that checked. _He slowly opened his eyes and then shut them again as acrid smoked filled air stung them.

Another spasm of coughs and chokes racked at his lungs as he continued to breathe in the toxic fumes. _Smoke? _Veers tried to move but found something was holding his legs down. He opened his eyes and squinted to see where he was and what was holding him down.

Pale light filtered through the wreckage that was all around him. A gentle breeze temporarily cleared the air in front of him but it didn't last long enough as much as he would have liked it too. Specks of dirt blew into his face and he coughed again.

"W…what happened?" His voice was hoarse and his mouth was dry. He tried to remember the last thing he was doing. Vague images of an enormous explosion and an X-wing flashed past his mental field of vision. And a single word seemed to annoyingly repeat in his mind.

Evacuate.

Then it all came back to him and Veers realized where he was. "Help!" He called out but his cry for help was only answered by the silence of the jungle forest outside. He took a look at his situation and was thankful that the shuttle wasn't currently on fire. Though he didn't know how long that would last.

He attempted to move his legs and found that the console of the cockpit had pinned them to the floor. He scowled as he wondered what happened to the pilot and copilot. But when he tried to free a leg, twisting his body in the process his face came face to face with the pilot's.

He pulled back as far as his pinned legs would let him in shock and horror. The pilot's face was marred with large bleeding gashes and tiny pieces of debris either from tree branches or the shattered viewscreen. If the pilot hadn't worn the insignia that gave him his rank, Veers would not have known which of the two he was since his face was completely unrecognizable.

"Mother of skies." He mumbled in half shock. Something dripped past his field of vision of his left eye and it took him a moment to notice the tickling sensation of something trickling down his forehead.

When he removed his hand from his scalp it was covered in red and very warm. _I'm bleeding. I have to get out of here. Who knows what kind of predators this moon has. _

The Colonel tested either of his legs to see if they were broken or in pain. The only thing he could feel was the pressure of the console weighing down on his limbs. Veers twisted and pulled gently until he had one leg free then carefully freed his remaining leg.

He coughed and choked again from the smoke a couple more times as he tried to push what looked like to be the stabilizer fin of the shuttle off of the gapping hole that use to be the viewscreen. The heavy metal budged a few centimeters and he was just about to give up when he gave his last push all he had and the fin slid off of the crushed nose of the shuttle. The fin crashed loudly to the ground and tilted wildly before coming back to bang against the shuttle nose.

Veers stumbled out of the ruined cockpit and into fresher air. Smoke gently rolled out of the rubble behind him in a northeasterly direction as he slowly stood atop of the wreckage and studied his surroundings.

Parts of the jungle had once been on fire but the heavy moisture in the air kept that fire from spreading to other parts of the jungle. To the east he could hear the trickling sound of water flowing. _A river no doubt._

He could see through the pillars of smoke behind the shuttle the deep gouge the craft made when it crashed and slid across the earth. Bits and pieces of the shuttle were strewn all over the place; some even hung limply from tree branches.

"What a mess." He sighed in frustration. Veers then took deep lung fulls of the fresh air, which caused him to cough a couple times from the stabbing pain he felt in his bruised ribs, before making his way down the side of the shuttle. He had to see if anyone else had survived the crash.

He was pulling away at a loose sheet of metal when he thought he heard someone moan inside. "Hello?" He called out. "Can you hear me?" 

No response.

Veers pulled harder against the hull until he had a large enough opening for a man to slip through. "Hello?" He repeated as he slipped through. It was a tight squeeze and was forced to sacrifice his uniform jacket as it caught on a jagged edge and ripped. He didn't care about that at the moment, the only thing that was on his mind was getting to the person he thought was still alive.

He made it through without any further problems and had to crouch in order to make his way to a human half buried beneath slabs of metal and seats. The human was a young male and Veers was saddened that such a young person had to die this way. The Colonel removed his fingers from the man's neck and lifted his gaze at the sound of a groan.

"Can you hear me?" He repeated. "If you can't speak give me a sign that you can hear me, please." He didn't hear it at first but after a second he recognized the sound of someone tapping metal against metal. 

Colonel Veers followed the sound until he found himself closer to the rear of the shuttle, or at least what would have been the rear. Earth had piled up inside the back and buried parts of the shuttle. The sound seemed to be coming from a portion of the shuttle that was half buried.

"I'm coming, just hold on!" He shouted and began digging away at the mound of dirt. Smoke once again began to fill the inside of the shuttle and it felt hotter than the smoke he breathed back at the cockpit. That only meant a fire was beginning to break out.

Veers coughed and wondered what kind of affect this was going to have on his lungs in the future as he continued to dig through the dirt until his fingers scraped up against metal and flesh.

He grabbed what was an arm with one hand and pulled at the metal with another. Occasionally he had to resume digging in order to move the slab. He continued at this task until he had a coughing face emerge.

"Are you alright?" Veers felt stupid asking that question when the man he just unburied had been buried and covered in dirt mixed blood.

"C…Colonel?" The man sputtered in a dazed voice. "W…what happened?"

"You'll be alright…" He paused as he looked for the man's rank but found his chest bare of the insignia. Instead he opted to repeat himself. "You'll be alright."

"I can't feel anything, sir." Veers frowned while he continued to unbury the Imperial.

"Explain." He said and listened to the Imperial's, whose name he would later learn was Lt. Pliskin, description of his injuries that he couldn't feel. _Paralysis, waist down._ Veers concluded sadly after listening.

"Am I going to live, Colonel?" Pliskin asked in a tired voice.

Veers swallowed tightly. How was he supposed to tell him that he was or wasn't going to make it? He wasn't a doctor and hadn't had the chance to see the Lieutenant's complete injuries yet.

"It's too early to tell." Veers replied. "Come on, let's get you out of here before we both die from smoke inhalation." Veers pulled Pliskin from the pile by the shoulders back toward the hole he had made in the side of the shuttle. He had a difficult time trying to make it easy on the Lieutenant when it came to squeezing him through the hole, but he made it through without furthering more damage to his already battered body.

"What's that sound?" Pliskin inquired and looked up to the sky.

"What sound?" Veers asked and cocked his head. He had feared the Rebels might send a party to see if anyone survived the crash, but he didn't hear anything similar to an ion engine.

"It sounds like a buzz. Like a Stinger Fly." Pliskin answered. Veers scowled and strained to listen. He could hear something far off in the distance that did resemble the sound of a Stinger Fly buzzing about its nest. 

"I don't know." Veers sounded worried. He hoped it was nothing but being on a planet with animal life he was unaware of made him nervous. He wanted to get away from the wreckage as far as possibly, mostly though to avoid the Rebels than any predators that could be lurking about.

The Imperial Army officer lifted Pliskin into his arms and began walking away when the buzzing sound steadily grew louder and from the northeasterly direction.

"It's getting closer." Pliskin's voice sounded frightened. Veers couldn't blame him for it. He was also afraid. Afraid to find out what the source of the buzzing was. "I think we should get away from here."

"Agreed."

Veers was only able to walk a few paces when the first signs of the buzzing appeared at the edge of the crash site in the tree canopy. Small insect like creatures that reminded Veers of Sand Beetles began to swarm overhead and quickly descend for the shuttle.

"Piranha Beetles!" The Colonel exclaimed. He had heard about them back on Coruscant while watching a Biology channel. They traveled in swarms and ate anything that got in their way. They also had an olfactory sense a million times more sensitive than humans and therefore could smell the scent of blood miles away.

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And we're covered in it! Veers panicked as soon as he saw the swarm split in half, one half consuming the shuttle remains and the other half-approaching Pliskin and him. He didn't hesitate like most men would have. As soon as he saw he was in danger he began to run away from the tiny predators, Pliskin in his arms.

"They're gaining!" Pliskin informed, his voice completely filled with fear. 

"Don't remind me!" Veers exclaimed. The buzzing reminder was enough. He didn't need Pliskin to tell him that they were right behind him and gaining. He hadn't realized where he was going; there was no time to think about what to do, until he began splashing through a shallow river. 

An idea hit him like a maglev train. "Hold your breath!" He ordered and took a deep breath before ducking beneath the surface of the water. The buzzing sound of the beetles was muffled beneath the surface and both Imperials could make out the dark swarm above them.

Veers hoped that the beetles didn't know how to swim otherwise he and Pliskin were good as dead. He also didn't know how long either of them could hold their breath underwater before the beetles gave up on them.

Then Pliskin began squeezing Veers' shoulder hard. He was running out of air and so was Veers. Worse, some of the beetles, driven by the suicidal desire to reach them, began diving into the water after them.


	5. Another One Bites The Dust

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Chapter IV - Another One Bites the Dust

Colonel Veers mentally sighed in relief when he discovered that the beetles were killing themselves. He and Pliskin were fortunate enough to have been too far below the surface of the water for the beetles to reach them. Through blurred vision, Veers could make out the swarm slowly dissipating into nothing as the carnivorous insects gave up on prey they had thought would be easy.

Once Veers was certain the predators were gone, both emerged from beneath the surface gasping for lung fulls of air. Colonel Veers then warily searched for any sign of the beetles but only heard the distant sound of their buzzing. He sighed in relief now that he was out of immediate danger.

Worried that the Piranha Beetles might return once he and Pliskin left the river; Veers decided that it would be safest to travel by water until he was certain that the things had left the area. He also did not want to be visible just in case the rebels were looking for them.

Maximilian Veers glanced above him at the tree tops, doubt clouding his judgement that the rebels could see them through the thick canopy above. But he didn't want to take the risk.

"We'll rest here." Veers told Pliskin after he found and moved to hide underneath a half rotten log sticking out from the bank and covered in algae and moss. The log would hide them from rebel eyes and the water would wash away any scent of blood from them, therefore keeping the Piranha Beetles away.

"I don't feel so good." Pliskin complained and shivered. Veers' eyes fell downward to stare at a streak of red liquid flowing down river before disappearing a couple meters away. He glanced at his own hands and saw red bloodstains that were not washed away, in the creases of the joints and palm print.

"Just hold on." Veers encouraged, his voice sounding worried for the life of the Lieutenant. Carefully he settled Pliskin's feet to the muddy ground of the river while he held onto him with one arm and wrapped one of the Lieutenant's arms around his shoulders.

Veers could feel the injury beneath his arm and knew there was nothing he could do for him. Sometime during the crash Pliskin must have fallen on a steel beam that slashed into his back, severing his spinal cord and leaving behind a large gash. 

"What is your name?" Veers asked, he wanted to keep the young officer awake. The Colonel thought that if he could last long enough for him to carry back to the shuttle, he could find a medical kit and patch up the injury as best he could. But he couldn't do that now so long as the beetles remained devouring the remains of his comrades.

"Lieutenant Andrew Pliskin, sir." He replied in a small and tired voice. His head dipped forward slightly and he caught himself in time to straighten.

"What were you doing on the Death Star?" Veers adjusted the Lieutenant so that Pliskin could lean against him more comfortably and lessen the pain he was no doubt feeling in his back above the severed spinal cord.

"I was...I was a technician in the..." Pliskin trailed off abruptly. Colonel Veers frowned and gently nudged the young man.

"Lieutenant?" He quietly called. His voice sounded uncertain. Alarms began to go off inside his head. He called more loudly next time. "Pliskin!" Veers' free hand shot straight for the man's pulse. "Wake up, please!" Colonel Veers pleaded; his voice quivering as his fingers found nothing along the main artery in the neck.

"No." Veers whispered in disbelief. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the rotting log, holding the limp form of Pliskin in his arms, and silently grieving that he had lost another colleague to the rebellion.


	6. Skulls and Bones

**__**

Chapter V - Skulls & Bones

A mound of stone and a make shift tombstone were the only signs that Lieutenant Andrew Pliskin had ever existed. Colonel Maximilian Veers stood over the gravesite in solemn silence. It had been several hours since the Piranha Beetle attack and he had no fear of attracting their attention again anytime soon. 

During that time he had waited in a river beneath a rotting log, holding onto the prone form of Pliskin and once he was certain the buzzing had completely ceased to be heard by human hearing, he emerged to bury the young man. He had painstakingly collected rocks and small boulders from the riverbank all around and carefully arranged the burial mound of a proud and heroic soldier of the Empire.

Colonel Veers' absentmindedly rubbed an emblem patch of the Empire between thumb and forefinger. A symbol that stood for the order of the New Order that had superseded the Old Republic. An emblem that held pride and honor for the Imperial war machine. Delicately he placed the patch onto the capstone of the grave and held it in place with a tiny rock.

"Lieutenant Andrew Pliskin, you have served your Emperor in more ways than one. You will not be forgotten, I swear it on my own honor." Colonel Veers straightened his posture proudly, clicked his heels together and saluted to the lost Lieutenant.

He was now alone on a hostile world full of things that would want to eat him and traitors that would want to either kill or capture him. He was wet and cold and he felt like the first signs of hypothermia were setting in his bones. 

And he had the galaxy's worse migraine.

Veers rubbed his throbbing temple, grimaced and pulled away a bloodied hand. He had forgotten that he had been injured in the crash himself. His pained breathing reminded him of his bruised ribs, as if the revelation of his head injury had made him once again aware of his own body. 

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I need a medkit. He told himself and wondered if one had really survived the crash of the shuttle. Then he remembered about the others and a new sadness enveloped him as he realized no one could have survived the veracious hunger of the Piranha Beetles.

Colonel Veers slowly made his way back to the crash site all the while thinking about his colleagues and how many of them were alive when the carnivorous insects came down upon them. He shook his head of the vivid thoughts; he did not want to depress himself by continuing to live in the past.

But the smell of Death would not let it go by that easily.

As Veers approached closer to the remains of the shuttlecraft, the air around it reeked of death. He could feel it permeate through his flesh and down to his own bones. Veers shivered in response to the frigid atmosphere. He wanted to leave this area for more reasons than just the rebels. 

He had seen soldiers die in front of him. He had glimpsed at the agony of men who Death would not take quickly. He had seen and faced Death many times himself but nothing he had experienced in the past could prepare him for what he saw now as he crawled his way back inside the shuttle in search of a medical kit.

Skulls and bones greeted his return.

"Sithspawn." He whispered in complete and terrifying horror as he stared at a slacked jaw skull staring out at him with eyeless sockets. He felt like he was in the middle of a horror holovid, no matter where he turned, he saw skeletons in tattered and torn uniforms. Some were missing their skulls; others' were missing limbs and pieces of limbs and other parts. 

Colonel Veers moved away from the skeletal remains of the pilot and bumped into something that gently rested on his right shoulder. Already terrified, he pulled away from the object that landed on his shoulder. The bones of a forearm clattered to the dirt covered plastisteel floor.

Veers completely forgot about the medical kit as he hastily scrambled his way out of the shuttle in fright. Never had he ever had to experience this in his entire career in the Imperial Army. Basic training had not and could not prepare him for the sights he saw back in the shuttle.


	7. Rebel Sighting

**__**

Chapter VI - Rebel Sighting

Colonel Maximilian Veers refused to return to the shuttle, even for a medical kit. He did not want to face the remains of his comrades or smell the stench that was no doubt by now hovering over the entire area. The past events had left him shaken, unusual for a man of his caliber. 

Vigorously he dowsed his face in cold, river water to wash away the dried blood from his face and head, as well as the vivid images. The cold, unsanitary water stung at his wound sharply but he ignored it and preferred the annoyance to the visions that kept swimming before him. 

Once he was certain that his head wound was clean, he pulled off his torn uniform jacket and began ripping away at it until he had thick and wide strips of cloth. Expertly he wrapped the wound with the strips until he looked like a tired, dirty, and wounded soldier from the Clone Wars holomovies, in his water reflection.

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I am a tired, dirty, and wounded soldier. He laughed gloomily at his own rippling reflection. Veers sat back on the edge of the riverbank and just stared out into space. Only now did he have the time to finally fully grasp his hapless situation.

"Let me rephrase that, I am a tired, dirty, wounded, _and_ stranded soldier." He groaned at his hopelessness. Veers knew that the Imperial Fleet was coming, once it realized that the Death Star was no longer making or receiving any more communications. But the chances of the fleet finding him on a jungle covered and rebel infested planet were next to nil.

"Unless, I make my way to those stone monoliths I saw earlier. When the fleet arrives, the rebels should be either gone or defeated." He vaguely remembered getting a glimpse of a set of golden colored stone temples before the disastrous crash. Slowly he stood up and searched in all directions as to which way the structures were located.

He visualized the trajectory of the shuttle and which direction he remembered seeing the temples. Veers scowled in frustration when he realized he wasn't absolutely certain as to which direction was right.

"Kriff it!" He hollered and kicked at the muddy riverbank, sending clods of mud into the gentle flowing river. After the brief spurt of his temper he slowly began to calm himself. "Take it easy, Maximilian, just stay with the..."

Then he heard it. 

It was faint at first and then grew louder as it approached. At first, Colonel Veers thought the Piranha Beetles were returning and then he distinguished the distinct sound of an ion engine. The stranded Imperial began to run back toward the shuttle in hopes of a rescue, but after the first few meters he came to a dead stop. A new type of fear etched across his tired visage.

"Rebels." He muttered as he turned and ran away from the crash site. He splashed his way across the river to the other side and into the tree line of the jungle. Veers tried to make himself smaller and unnoticeable by lying flat on his stomach. 

He did not want to leave the area since he didn't know which way the temples were located. His only chance of rescue was the hope that the Imperial fleet would spot the earthly scar of the crash from orbit.

The noisy craft slowly flew overhead, barely skimming the tree canopy, from the south-southwesterly direction. It was just about the same direction, which the Imperial shuttle had made it's deadly crash from. Veers heart fluttered in both adrenaline-induced excitement and a new hope that he could be rescued sooner and easier than just staying around the downed craft.

The rebel craft came into full view as it began its descent over the crash site. It was Veers realized, a stolen Imperial shuttle bearing the insignia of the Rebel Alliance. Unconsciously he pressed his body further into the moist dirt of the forest floor as he waited for the same craft to leave in conclusion that no one survived.

Then a new idea came to him. What if he could capture the shuttle and make his way back to Imperial held territory? He knew he might be branded a hero and survivor of a disastrous battle against the rebel terrorists. He wondered what the Imperial Gold Cross would feel like around his neck. _Probably just like every other medal I had received._

He made up his mind, he would try and steal the shuttle and in the process kill the rebels that arrived with it. After all, he owed it to the millions of soldiers and civilian workers that died on the space station, including Lieutenant Pliskin. 

Then as he moved to grab for his pistol, he found the leather holster empty of the DL-44 BlasTech. Veers dark blue eyes glanced to his side in dismay. Now how was he supposed to defeat the rebel search party without a blaster?

"The tracks lead this way." Someone said on the other side of the river just out of sight. Veers craned his neck to get a better view and spotted a group of three rebels following something along the ground.

__

They're following my footprints!

One member of the group pointed ahead and the Colonel held his breath as they briskly approached the grave of Lieutenant Pliskin. A blonde human picked up the emblem patch and flipped it over in his hand with scrutiny.

"Someone has survived." He said to the others.

"But there were only one set of footprints?" Protested a younger rebel in status quo orange flight suit of rebel pilots. Veers snickered at the stupidity of the young man and wished all rebels were just as incompetent.

"Then how do you explain a dead body buried underneath rocks?" The third member pointed out after removing several of the stones. Colonel Veers hissed at the audacity of the rebels to disturb the grave of a dead man, especially that of an Imperial officer. "No way a dead man could bury himself like this."

"Oh. You do have a point." The young pilot admitted embarrassed by his own ignorance. Veers wondered how such an imbecile could make it to be a pilot.

"Look here." The leader of the group pointed at a set of impressions in the ground. "The tracks lead back into the forest toward the shuttle." The rebel stood from his kneeling position and looked ahead, than pointed again. "And there, they return to the river."

Veers heart raced as he realized the rebels were tracking him. He grimaced at his own stupidity for leaving his tracks so easily visible. The three rebels followed his trail to the embankment of the river, the leader knelt down and scooped up a handful of dirt and let it fall through his fingers.

"Our mystery survivor is injured and nearby. The blood here is still fresh." The tracking rebel stated for his companions, his gaze followed along the opposite tree line until both Veers' and the rebel's eyes met.

It was only sheer will that prevented the Colonel from getting up and run from his hidden position. He softly let out his breath that he had forgotten he was holding as the rebel turned away from the forest.

"The tracks end here. I'm going to cross to see if they start again on the other side." Colonel Veers groaned in dismay as he watched the rebel pace back and forth along side the riverbank in search of the trail.

"Find anything?" The young pilot inquired and the rebel leader nodded, waving for them to join him on the other side.

"Yeah and I think he knows we're here." The rebel replied and explained to his companions how the stride of the tracks was wider than the ones on the other side of the river, indicating that the owner was running. 

The three rebels straightened and each pulled their sidearm free of the holster.

Colonel Veers cautiously glanced around his surroundings and hoped his hiding spot hid him well. He did not need the rebels to find him, even though it meant he would no longer be stranded on the mud ball of a planet. Seriously though, he would rather be captured than live the rest of his life here. At least his chances of escaping the rebels were better than being rescued on a jungle covered, backwater, and piranha beetle infested planet.

The leader, the blonde, and the pilot began to make their way toward the Colonel's position, unaware how close they were to the sole surviving Imperial.


	8. Die Rebel Die!

**__**

Chapter VII - Die Rebel Die!

Colonel Veers held his breath as the blonde was nearly on top of him. If the rebel came any closer, no matter how well he was hidden, Veers knew that the rebel would discover someone was hiding. And that would be bad news for him. He did not want his cover blown so early, not until he made the first move anyway.

Veers waited patiently all the while his heart raced inside his chest. Vivid images from basic training came back at him at the most inappropriate time. He recalled doing something very similar in the forest terrain of Carida, something his instructors had called 'The Breakdown'. It was a three-week exercise where new recruits were forced to put to test all the skills they had learned in the first six months of training. It put a lot of mental and physical strain on the recruit until they broke down.

A mock battle would be fought against experienced Imperial soldiers and voluntary civilians. The objective of the exercise was to not only survive but to defeat the enemy and apprehend the mock garrison they were holding. He had survived the battle and was one of ten cadets who had raised the Imperial flag at the base. Veers believed it had been the most exhilarating experience he had ever gone through.

The blonde rebel turned his back to Veers. It was the moment he was waiting for. Without hesitating, Veers lunged out of his hidden spot on to the back of the Rebel. Both men fell toward the muddy ground of the Yavin jungle.

"Help!" Cried the rebel as Veers pounded a fist repeatedly into the human's face all the while he wrestled for the blaster. Colonel Veers could hear over the struggle the two other rebels rushing through the forest to reach their fallen comrade.

Blonde smashed his own fist into Veers face, sending him sprawling onto his back. The rebel than moved to tackle the fallen Imperial, but a red flash of light and a smoking hole in his chest a split second later stopped him dead in his tracks. 

Colonel Veers scrambled to his feet, a smoking blaster in his right hand at his side, just in time as the other two rebels emerged from the forest. 

"Stop!" Cried the leader and fired a shot at the fleeing Colonel. The energy bolt sped past Veers, narrowly missing him by half a foot. By the time the rebels began chasing after the Colonel, his uniform had allowed him to blend into the greenery, allowing him to disappear momentarily. 

Long enough for him to take advantage and flank the two remaining rebels.

"Where did he go?" The rebel pilot inquired loud enough for anything to find him easily. _Keep it up, foolish rebel._ Veers beckoned, smiling deviously as the pilot did as he silently commanded. "No way he could have disappeared that easily."

"Shush, or he'll find us." Snapped the leader in a much quieter tone.

Veers inched his way quietly toward the group until he spotted the pilot. _Turn your back._He pleaded and found himself to be lucky that fate was with him, for the rebel pilot did turn his back to the Colonel. Maximilian Veers slowly stood from his position, blaster extended out and fired into the young pilot's back.

Already the last remaining rebel was turning just as his companion's body began to fall to the ground. But he wasn't fast enough to bring up his own blaster and return fire. He too joined his two dead comrades with a smoking hole in the middle of his skull.

Colonel Veers leaned against a fat tree trunk littered with protruding step-like fungi. He took several deep full breaths of the air. He sneezed at the smell of burnt ozone and flesh, or was it from the fungi behind him? He didn't know but he still took steps to avoid the fungi just in case he actually was allergic to the organism.

Veers wanted to rest after the small firefight he had with the rebels, but he knew he couldn't stay around for very long. He didn't know how many rebels were in the shuttle and he certainly did not want to find out right away and on their terms. While he was searching through the pockets of the two rebels, the comlink of the rebel leader began to beep urgently for attention.

Veers slipped the leader's jacket onto his own torso and pulled out the comlink. He flipped it over in his hand, still beeping, before deciding to throw it into the jungle. The stranded Imperial stole the blaster clips of the rebels, a couple ration bars, and a tiny maglite before moving back toward the river and the rebel shuttlecraft.

He still had to find a way to steal the shuttle.


	9. Standoff

**__**

Chapter VIII - Standoff

Colonel Veers crouched behind a gnarled dead tree and peered below the trunk through a crevasse that was dug into the earth by some burrowing creature that wanted to get past the trunk but couldn't climb over and was too stupid to go around. It also gave him a good view of the rebel shuttlecraft and that of the downed vessel half buried in the earth from the high-velocity impact. 

He was badly outnumbered five to one and outgunned ten to one. Still, that didn't persuade him from giving up and getting off of the rotting planet. He had faced greater numbers than the ones he was presented with now and still came out on top as the victor. Except, he also had support during those battles and resources to rely on.

Here, all he had was his own ingenuity and a blaster.

Veers had two choices currently presentable to him. He could use the protection of the rotting trunk and the small hole beneath to fire from and pick them off one by one all the while leaving himself vulnerable to flank attacks. Or he could fire off one or two shots then move deeper into the forest and flank the rebels and come up from behind the wreckage allowing the rebels to run for cover inside the shuttle.

Or he could act like the Corellians and charge into battle blindly with no plan except for a blaster blazing wildly. Veers snorted at that idea. He knew how that would end, with him dead. Veers recalled watching security footage of a rebel terrorist getting separated from the others and chasing after two stormtroopers. A Wookiee had followed behind him and was lucky to not have been with his human companion. The charging rebel had quickly retreated as he had bravely chased the stormtroopers when he found out a legion of troopers was waiting around the corner.

That moment made Veers smile broadly.

He had several plans formulated in his mind. None of them insured flawless victory and most of them were too much of a risk to his life. 

"How hard can it be to take on five rebels when you just took out three earlier?" Veers chastised himself quietly for his reluctance. _Except all three were humans while these five are a mixed sort._ The two rebel humans inspecting the wreckage had a Wookiee tugging at the plastisteel that Veers had hours ago peeled away at to get to Lieutenant Pliskin.

A Twi'lek and a species Veers couldn't identify were guarding the shuttle ramp and talking away idly with each other as if it was only another drill and nothing serious. Colonel Veers decided he would take out the two at the shuttle and make a break for it before the remaining three could react to him.

But that idea was washed away with a new development.

A sixth rebel walked down the ramp to the two aliens and spoke to them in hushed tones. Veers could only guess as to what was being said, but he had a good idea they were talking about him. The Twi'lek lekkus twitched in agitation while the second seemed to stiffen in response to whatever the human was telling them.

The three rebels at the wreckage came back, the Wookiee wrinkling its nose in disgust at the smell it had to endure, to listen in on what the sixth rebel was telling. Then, to Veers alarm, they unholstered their blaster rifles while the two aliens and the sixth rebel walked back into the shuttle.

__

What are they doing? Veers inquired, troubled. His worries rocketed toward the sky when the Wookiee began to sniff the air and moaned something to the humans. Veers knew what had happened; the giant furball had smelled the Colonel's scent.

"Where?" The shorter rebel to the Wookiee's right inquired further. The Wookiee howled lowly and pointed in the general direction of the Imperial and to prove that something was hiding, the alien un-slung the giant bowcaster from his back and fired a green energy bolt.

The blast was short and dug into the dirt in front of the gnarled tree trunk. It splattered dirt down upon Colonel Veers who refused to flinch to the provoked attack. Another blast hit the tree trunk itself and splinters flew everywhere. 

"There's nothing there." The short rebel argued and the Wookiee howled in disagreement, shaking its chocolate furry head.

Colonel Veers pressed himself against the tree trunk and listened to the movements of the rebels. They weren't moving due to whatever the Wookiee had been telling them. Veers concluded they were hoping he would come out and reveal himself. He wasn't that big of a fool as they thought he was.

Then the sound of the shuttle starting up alarmed him. His chance of escaping the planet was leaving the area. He had to somehow stop it from going anywhere.

__

But how? He questioned to himself. _A mere blaster can not bring down a shuttle that is designed to resist hand and rifle blaster fire._ He didn't know if the owners had closed the ramp yet. There was only one way he could find out.

He was about to peek underneath the log when another blast from the bowcaster kept him positioned up against the decaying organism. The Wookiee was certainly persistent about someone hiding behind it.

The high pitched whine of the shuttle drowned out any other noise as it began to lift off from the ground. Veers pounded his fist into the earth beneath him in anger as his ride left rapidly over the tree tops back in the direction it had came. He only had one choice left to take now.

He would have to venture toward the temples.

But first, he had to get away from the party that the shuttle no doubt left behind to deal with him. That meant, getting out of sight if the rebels had moved since the shuttle took off.

Veers began to shift his weight to stand up and run for the forest when a ruby blaster bolt whizzed past his temple narrowly missing by millimeters. The close proximity of the shot was near enough for him to feel the heat and singe the bandage he had wrapped around his skull.

The closeness of the shot would have been enough to freeze any normal being into place. But Veers was not a normal being, his training did not allow for Imperial soldiers to freeze in place when under attack. It enforced spontaneous reaction into its trainees and veterans. Instantaneous, Veers leaped to his feet and began running. 

As soon as he revealed himself, blaster fire chased him and tried to trace his path ahead of him. But his training again enforced his path into a zigzag and unpredictable. It also made him return fire knowing that he had the slimmest chance of hitting any of the hostile force.

Veers dived into the trench the wrecked shuttle had created upon crashing, just as a salvo of blaster and bowcaster fire whizzed overhead. Breathing heavily, he raised his hand blaster over the edge and sent a reply without exposing himself. It was only meant to force the enemy to keep their heads down and not really do any damage. One out of a hundredth chance does that tactic ever actually hit a hostile.

Oh how Veers wished he had some grenades to throw at the rebels. He even wished he had an entire legion of stormtroopers, Imperial walkers and Scout walkers, and a squadron of TIE bombers strafing the ground from overhead. He missed having all those resources and realized how much he took them for granted.

He had always thought he would have the Imperial war machine right behind him when he went into battle. He had never considered the idea of being stranded on a hostile world with only a blaster and himself to fight with. He never had realized how much he relied on the stormtroopers he led to keep him unharmed and breathing. How many of those stormtroopers relied on him to keep them alive long enough so they could live and fight another day.

"Funny how life can enlighten you of things you took for granted, at the strangest and most dangerous moments." Veers laughed sardonically.

"Surrender, Imperial dog!" Yelled one of the rebels as soon as the blaster fire had died down long enough for the message to be clearly given. "You are surrounded and outnumbered!"

__

No kriff. Colonel Veers' thoughts dripped with sarcasm. His dirt covered back pressed up against one side of the shoved dirt of the man-made gorge. His hands danced over the blaster as they switched the cartridge from empty to a full one. His blue eyes took in the remaining cartridge and he knew he wouldn't last for very much longer once he ran out of ammunition. Sooner or later the rebels will realize he was out of ammo and begin making their way toward his position.

"Surrender now and the Alliance will promise that no harm shall come to you!" The rebel pleaded, his words marinated with deception and falsehood. Although Veers had no idea how the rebels would treat him, he did know that once they found out his rank and how much authority he had they would press for whatever information his mind kept locked away. Even if that meant using torture, both physical and mental, to break him. 

He didn't want to find that out. He'd rather suffer on the planet than having to live with the guilt of betraying his Emperor and the New Order through an interrogation. His loyalty to the Empire came first over his own self-being. The Academy at Carida had taught and drilled that into him relentlessly until he either understood it or it became programmed into him.

He also did not want to have to go through the steps of an interrogation. He knew what it was like to witness an Imperial questioning session, Veers did not want to imagine what rebel interrogations, with crude instruments and methods were like. Anything they did would be a lot rougher than what the Imperials could ever do. He had heard stories that the rebels made Imperial interrogations look gentle in comparison. 

Veers shuddered at the idea of savage and uncivilized criminals torturing his body and mind only for the knowledge he possessed and perhaps for their own sadistic twisted pleasure. He remembered seeing footage of rebel insurgents uprising on some backwater world in the Outer Rim. Imperial officers and stormtroopers unfortunate enough to be in the path of the angry mob were either trampled to death, shot, or beaten to a pulp (sometimes resulting in death later).

"Come out! We know you can't last forever on just one blaster!" The same rebel hollered. Much as Veers loathes admitting it, the rebel was right. 

"Never!" He replied back and added three random and blind shots. He had no intentions of leaving his hiding spot. Veers let his gaze wander along his surroundings to see if there was anything useful in helping him against the rebels. There was nothing except a few pieces of shrapnel the size of a door or smaller.

His intense blue eyes stared at the pieces of wreckage, then with the determination of an Imperial soldier bent on staying alive and defeating the enemy, he began digging away at a piece of metal with his blaster and hands until he had it unburied. The piece was only about two feet long and a foot and a half wide. And despite all the dirt and smoke stains, it still shone with a metallic sheen. 

Perfect for a personal shield.

Blaster fire rang overhead as Veers pulled his jacket off and then his issued uniform shirt. He replaced the jacket back on his person and gripped the shield tightly with one hand and with his blaster-equipped hand he raised his shirt over the edge, careful to keep his shield out of sight, and began swinging it back and forth. The fabric of his shirt hid his blaster from sight.

"I'm coming out!" He hollered and tossed an empty clip a couple feet ahead of him in hopes to fool the rebels in thinking that he had thrown away his blaster. "Hold your fire!"

"A wise choice Imperial!" The rebel replied and Veers could hear them moving, most likely to accept their _prisoner_. Someone needed to teach them a little bit more about wisdom and warfare. Veers intended on being that person to give that lesson.

The Colonel took a deep breath, tucked his shirt partly into his belt, and leapt over the edge of the trench with shield raised and blaster blazing. He caught the two human rebels by surprise, one went down with a blast to his shoulder while the other ducked and rolled behind a tree. The Wookiee could not be seen anywhere but Veers did not pause to find out where the alien furball was.

The Imperial ran for the forest, his makeshift shield protecting him from the returning blaster fire. He could feel the impact of each shot and the metal was beginning to emit heat that it was absorbing. Then a shot from the bowcaster knocked him sideways. Veers staggered on his feet but kept himself upright and protected by the shield by miracle.

Once he was within the relative safety of the forest, he dumped the shield and began running harder. He didn't pause to look over his shoulder and fire back or to see if the Rebels were coming after him. The only thing that told him of the rebels' status was the occasional shot of a blaster and a Wookiee howl as the alien took up the chase.

Veers dodged and ran around tree trunks and prickly bushes. Branches scrapped and tore at him as he fled from the crash site for the third time that day. The first time was to escape the piranha beetles, the second time was out of fear and the stench that reeked the area, and now he ran from it again to get away from the rebels.

It just was not his day with that site. 

A frustrated howl told Veers that the Wookiee was giving up the chase. He didn't understand why but he really didn't care. He wanted to get away from the rebels. Another howl, this Veers understood, echoed behind him. Something, he realized, he must have done to get such a threat from the creature.

"I hope it never comes about." Veers muttered as he pushed his way past several vines hanging from a limp tree. He never stopped running, not even after the rebels had momentarily given up the chase. Not at least until night fell and the temperature began to drop did he stop to rest.

Colonel Veers walked another kilometer in the dimming light of dusk to find a suitable place to spend the night. He found a toppled tree that leaned up against a larger one. It was an ideal place to sleep. The massive trunk of the dead tree was just large enough to be a roof and dead vines from that tree drooped downward to about two feet above the ground, partially hiding anything inside from view.

Veers didn't dare light a fire for fear of the rebels discovering it from overhead. Instead, he curled up into a ball beneath a pile of fallen leaves and dead vines and scrunched his jacket closer around him and tried to sleep the night away.


	10. Nightmares & Dark Lords

****

Part II

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Seduction

**_Chapter IX - Nightmares & Dark Lords_**

**_DAY TWO_**

The morning mist of the jungle obstructed Colonel Veers' vision as he made his way through the vegetation and closer to the heart of rebel occupied territory. Something slimy slithered across his hand as he used a tree trunk for support. Veers pulled his hand away in disgust and rubbed at it unconsciously as if it will get rid of the feeling.

He yawned tiredly. Veers had not slept much through the night. Things kept disturbing him in his sleep. One thing turned out to be some kind of avian hooting the night away. Another thing happened to slither across his body without him knowing until its forked tongue began flicking in his ear. The night creatures he didn't mind so much at all. It was the nightmares that haunted him that had kept him awake most of the night.

Nightmares of the Death Star exploding in various forms were one of the things that taunted him. Sometimes the dreams portrayed the station as Tarkin's grayed head, smirking in triumph as the last moments of the Rebellion were within his grasp when it would suddenly explode at the final seconds of the count down. Sometimes it was his body or those of other people he knew.

The remains of his colleagues also taunted and danced in his dreams. Those were the worse nightmares he had throughout the night. He would wake up in a cold sweat, despite the cold temperature of the jungle, after either the skull of the pilot laughing at him or a skeleton in stormtrooper armor accusing him of leaving them behind during the piranha attack, woke him up.

One time he tried to reason with his subconscious, he tried to explain there was nothing he could do for the fallen Imperials. But it would not listen to his logic. It was as if the dead blamed him for everything that had happened. In a way, they were right. If it hadn't discovered the rebels' intentions, all of them, including he, would have died on the Death Star. Then the only persons to be blamed were the damned rebels.

Veers sighed sadly. The rebel terrorists were the cause of his insomnia. He had lain awake underneath the dead tree and vines for hours, unable to sleep until the final hours of the night creeped its way into the sky. Too tired to dream of nightmares, his mind and body slept restlessly, the remnants of the dreams too vivid in his mind to let him fall back into a deep sleep.

All because of one pilot's torpedo had gone down the exhaust port.

Now he was walking through the jungles of Yavin IV toward the ancient temples and the rebel base, trying to avoid capture and staying alive in the meantime and to stave off boredom and hunger. 

Colonel Veers' stomach grumbled in protest of not being fed properly. He hadn't eaten anything since the morning of yesterday, just before the battle that became costly to the Empire. 

"How many soldiers and brilliant young minds were lost?" He asked the jungle and an animal in the distance squawked in reply. "Too many." He answered his question, his voice full of melancholy.

His stomach protested about the void that filled its cavity again. Colonel Veers decided to take a rest and sit at the base of one of the jungle trees, remembering also he had some food to silence his noisy stomach. He opened up his jacket and pulled out a tin foiled ration bar he had filched off of one of the dead rebels.

It tasted bland and he wished he had some seasoning or something to sweeten the awful food. "How the hell can the rebels eat this stuff?" He complained and forced himself to swallow the portions he chewed. Veers had eaten better rations then the ones he had now. He chuckled at the irony of how much he preferred Imperial rations to the rebel rations.

Veers took out a canteen from his utility belt and unscrewed the top to take a swig of the river water he had collected yesterday. The lukewarm water helped wash away the bland taste of the ration bar and quench the thirst that he had no clue was there. 

"He's over here." Whispered a voice in the fog suddenly. Colonel Veers dropped his meal and the canteen and sat up to one knee; his stolen blaster ready as his alert blue eyes scanned the misty jungle for the source. He couldn't see anyone but that didn't mean no one was out there.

A quiet maniacal laughter echoed throughout the jungle and the humid air suddenly felt frigid. Veers shivered and pulled the rebel jacket closer around his torso as he collected the ration and canteen from the ground before continuing on his journey. 

"Fear. Fear attracts the fearful, the strong, the weak..." The same voice whispered, followed by another round of raving laughter.

"I can see you, but can you see me?" A rustle behind him coerced Veers to spin around and fire a shot into the mist. Whoever was watching and stalking him found his efforts humorous. Again the voice laughed at him.

"Show yourself!" Veers hollered. The mist seemed to swirl in front of and all around him. He didn't like the erieness of the jungle adding to the stalker's bizarre game. Someone cackled directly into his left ear and the Colonel took a swing with a balled up fist in response, but he only went through air. 

"Pathetic." The bodiless voice echoed at him.

"I demand that you show yourself!" Veers ordered sternly, his eyes warily watching his surroundings for any sign of the stalker. As soon as he saw him, Veers vowed he'd shoot first and than ask questions later. No one taunts him at all and gets away with it, much less live to tell about it.

"Yes." Hissed the voice with twisted pleasure. "Your temper is wild when provoked." 

And as if someone had shocked him with 10,000 volts of electricity, Maximilian Veers caught his temper and wrestled it under control. He gripped his blaster tighter and narrowed his eyes with a cold deadliness. Through clenched teeth Veers managed to speak in a strained calm tone. "Who _are_ you?"

"I am _the _Dark Lord of the Sith!" Boomed the voice and several avians and furry creatures scattered in fright from their hiding places, no longer finding them secure from the looming and unseen entity.

__

Not another one. Veers groaned gloomily.


	11. An Offer You Can't Refuse

**__**

Chapter X - An Offer You Can't Refuse

Maximilian Veers could not see the person who claimed to be a Dark Lord of the Sith. The only Dark Lord he knew was Lord Darth Vader and at the moment he had no idea whether Vader survived the battle or died when the space station exploded. From what Veers knew about the Sith and the Jedi, there was only suppose to be one Dark Lord of the Sith. 

__

So how can there be two? He asked silently to himself, although he might as well have said it out loud for the entire universe to hear because the _Dark Lord_ chose to answer his question.

"There can only be one!" Replied the disembodied voice; an annoyed rage seemed to radiate out of the middle of no where when it talked. Colonel Veers could feel the emotions in the air and could have sworn that the rage was more than what it felt to be. 

Longing.

He didn't understand what that meant and wasn't exactly sure whether he wanted to find out the meaning to the puzzle. A part of him told him to not have anything to do with the bodiless voice. That part wanted him to flee, to get away from the voice. The rest of him knew that would be pointless since the voice could follow him. Furthermore, Veers was torn between curiosity and the urge to avoid getting involved in whatever the _thing_ wanted.

"Who are you?" Veers asked again, wanting to find out the name of this interloper, posing as a Sith Lord.

"I am the embodiment of darkness. I am the soul of this moon. I am the master of the Massassi!" The voice declared in response. The fog swirled and twisted before Colonel Veers' vision and he thought he saw a vague image of a young man full of fire and anger approach him. The stranded Imperial raised his blaster pistol in a threatening gesture.

The _figure_ laughed at his puny attempts in self-defense. The foggy image of the young man faded and disappeared. The hair on the back of Veers' neck stood on ends as his eyes wildly searched the surroundings for any sign of the entity. He found no evidence indicating that the entity was here or there.

The only thing that told him that the specter was still with him was the luminous feeling of something dark and evil hanging in the air, permeating from the trees and the earth. It was enough to nearly suffocate the Colonel.

"The Force is strong with you." The dark entity spoke in a quiet voice, almost a whisper, in Veers' right ear. "You could become powerful."

"I don't want anything to do with that old religion." Veers replied and moved on, wanting to get away from the voice. From the darkness that surrounded him like a cold blanket.

"It can even help you escape this planet."

Colonel Veers stopped in his tracks at the mentioning of a way to escape and get back to his own people. Slowly Veers turned around to face the re-emerging image of the young man in the fog. Veers lips moved to form words but no breath escaped from them. The very thought of freedom was enough to leave him speechless. The very thought of being able to see his son again was enough to let him listen to the Dark Lord's proposal.

"How?" He managed to say at last.

"I can train you in the ways of the Force. You would be able to stand up to the intruders at the stone step-pyramid temple. They would bow down to you and provide safe passage off planet." The entity replied, a sinister smile spreading across his lips as he explained to the Colonel what he could be capable of with the Force at his command.

All the things the Dark Lord listed did not impress Veers. Some of the abilities he had seen Lord Vader put to use on the prisoner workers aboard the Death Star to encourage them to work harder and faster. Some he had no idea a Jedi or a Sith could actually do. Still he was cautious to not agree to the entity's offer. Veers had a feeling that there was more to the bargain then what the Dark Lord let on.

"What do I do in exchange for this training?" He asked carefully. The facsimile figure paced around the Imperial, smiling sinisterly, a smile that made Veers involuntarily shiver.

"Only my apprentice." The entity answered half-truthfully. Veers narrowed his eyes at the ghostly apparition. He didn't trust this specter one bit. Why would a Dark Lord of the Sith help him escape this planet? Last he checked, the Sith didn't have much of a heart to help stranded people unless they knew they would get something back in return.

"I'll have to think about it." Veers said at last, hiding his thoughts from seeping into his tone.

"Don't think too long." It said. "The intruders are in a hurry to leave this place." The specter smiled at him again before its image swirled and faded back into the misty fog of the jungle morning. "I hear Yavin IV can be a very unpleasant place to live on your own."

The voice cackled and faded into the distance, leaving Colonel Veers alone in the fog. 

Veers trudged through the jungle, continuing on his journey toward the temples he had seen yesterday. The brief exchange of words with the Dark Lord continued to invade his consciousness as if it had a life of its own. He wanted to leave the jungle moon as soon as possible, but was he that willing to sell his soul to the equivalent of a demonic being? And what would happen to him once he did escape Yavin?

He knew the policy of the Emperor concerning people who are capable of exploiting their force sensitivity. Once he learned how to manipulate the Force, how long would it take for one of the Inquisitors to take his life?

__

Not very bloody long. Veers concluded as he stepped over a pile of some creature's feces and waved at the air before him, trying to get rid of the foul stench and bring fresh air to his nostrils to no avail. The pile of dung symbolically reminded him of how much the Dark Lord's offer sounded too good to be true, that it stank of deceit and a price far more expensive than being a mere apprentice.

Veers just wish he knew what that extravagant price tag cost. Were whatever the true intentions of the Dark Lord worth his freedom of this wretched and humid jungle planet? He wished he could find the answer easily. 

The paradox continued to eat at him until he decided to take a break from his hike. He pulled out the canteen and took another swig of the lukewarm liquid of life. The Colonel wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and tugged at the collar of his jacket and olive-gray shirt. 

A new thought picked at his brain concerning his force sensitivity. How does he know for certain that the Dark Lord wasn't lying to him about his sensitivity in the Force? There was only one way to find out, he had to ask the Dark Lord much to his sorrow.

"Uh..." He hesitated. The dark entity never did give him his name and Veers wasn't sure how to address the being. _Well, he is a Dark Lord; I could always address him as Lord._ "...My Lord?"

The fog in front of him swirled and twisted until a gray image of the young man reappeared again. Veers never understood why he just now noticed the entity's attire. He was dressed in loose robes, trousers, leather boots, and a tunic that gave no color due to the grayness of the fog, but Veers could tell that they were dark colored just like its wearer. A long cylindrical device hung at his right waist. The Colonel had seen something similar to the device, but it was much shorter than the entity's.

"You can call me Lord Exar Kun." The entity said, obviously understanding the hesitation in the Colonel's call. "Have you come to a decision?" He asked, immediately getting down to business. His arms were folded across his chest impatiently.

"Uh...no, not yet." Veers replied as he watched the specter. The image turned to leave disgusted at having his time wasted, why a ghost would think his time would be wasted when he had all eternity to spend was beyond Veers. "Wait, I just wanted to ask you a couple questions."

Kun turned his head to regard the Imperial and nodded solemnly. "Ask."

"How do you know that I am Force sensitive?"

Exar Kun's mouth twisted into a wicked smile that failed to be friendly. The ghostly apparition stepped closer to the Colonel who was backing away involuntarily. "You already have that answer, Colonel Veers." He replied.

"I don't understand." Veers blinked in confusion.

"You have already used it."

Veers shook his head, not understanding what the Dark Lord was talking about. From what he knew, he had never used the Force in his entire life. So how could this entity claim that he already had? Exar Kun extended a hand, palm downward, and the fog hugging the ground shifted to reveal a three dimensional scene of the jungle under story. The scene looked familiar and it took a moment for Veers to realize that it was the area near the river where he had faced the first three rebel soldiers. 

"I didn't use the Force there." Veers argued.

"Can you be so certain?" Kun replied. "Watch."

Veers watched as he was commanded. The scene played out, from his own point of view he realized, the young rebel pilot walked into view talking out loud. A voice, barely audible, spoke that sounded very much like the Colonels. Though Veers could not recall ever talking out loud.

__

"Keep it up, foolish rebel." His voice said and the rebel continued to talk. His voice then added, _"Turn your back."_ Only then did Veers begin to understand what the Dark Lord was trying to convey to him.

"You mean...that..." He trailed off and looked at Exar Kun, bewildered. He had only thought it a bit of good luck that the rebel pilot had done what he silently commanded. He hadn't figured that some all-powerful energy had influenced the young man at the whim of his thoughts.

"Yes." Kun confirmed. "You will find that the weak minded are easily influenced by the Force." The image of the miniature battle ceased abruptly as soon as Kun dropped his hand back at his side. "You are Force sensitive and strong. You can also become a powerful Sith. Perhaps to even someday rival your Emperor and his pet apprentice."

Veers eyes snapped up from the spot where the facsimile image once appeared to gaze at Exar Kun angrily. "No." He forcefully said. "I will not betray the Emperor and Lord Vader." He stood rigid, proud and defiant. His gaze burrowing defiantly into Exar Kun, full of fire and malice at this creature that would dare suggest him to commit treason against his Sovereign.

"Think about it." Kun insisted. "You could become unstoppable. You could become Emperor of the Galaxy. All you have to do is agree to be my apprentice and everything could become yours."

"No!" Veers repeated, half shouting the words. "You can take your offer and shove it!" He spun on his heel and began walking away at a brisk pace. He did not want power and he certainly did not want to be Emperor of the Galactic Empire. He enjoyed the position he had now in the Imperial Armed Forces and if he wanted more power, he would earn it just like every other officer in the Empire. Through hard won work and hard fought battles against the Rebellion. Not through some hokey religion that died some twenty years ago along with the Old Republic.

"You are walking in the wrong direction." The voice of Kun said and Veers stopped his retreat to get his bearings. He cursed at being mocked and corrected by the Dark Lord and clenched his fists before resuming on the correct course. 


	12. It's Contaminated

**__**

Chapter XI - "It's Contaminated"

The midday sun beat down on Colonel Veers; he had shed his jacket hours earlier after the humidity and searing heat of the jungle forest left him hot and drenched in sweat. Sweat drenched his shirt under the armpits and down his back. It even beaded across his face and down his neck that left him wiping it away constantly. 

He pulled out the canteen for a drink but found it nearly empty of water. Veers dug into the utility belt for a ration bar and nibbled on the foul tasting food, thinking about his encounter with Exar Kun for the hundredth time that day.

His offer was very tempting. Even the promise of power was beginning to grow on Veers. He wondered if Kun was influencing him with the Force so that he'll eventually accept. Veers shook his head of the thought and finished off the water from the canteen and tucked the ration bar back into his utility belt. 

He flipped the bottle upside down over his mouth to get the last drops of water and wiped away a drop that missed from the corner of his lips. He re-slung his jacket over his shoulder and continued to walk. 

The slight trickling sound of running water caught his attention after thirty minutes of traveling. Veers smiled upon his fortune to find a small creek to fill his canteen. Once the bottle was filled to the rim, Veers followed the creek for several hundred yards to see where it went before branching away to resume his course toward the general direction of the temples.

He coughed slightly and cleared his throat; the water from his canteen tasted differently when he took a sip. He didn't pay much attention to it like he should have. His mind was concentrating more on the annoying heat from the sun that kept beating down on him.

Maximilian Veers covered his eyes and stared up at the sun, blinking away the spots that formed in his vision from gazing at the orb. Off to the west, part of the gas giant skimmed the horizon and gave the sky an orange tint. He wiped the salty liquid from his neck with a hand and massaged the muscles.

The temperature of the jungle felt like it had jumped several degrees since midday to the point where he felt like he was in the middle of a frying plate. His mouth was parched dry for the fifth time since he refilled his canteen. He found it unusual for a humid jungle to do that to a person. There was enough moisture in the air to at least keep the inside of his mouth slightly moist, but it felt like he was walking through a desert instead of jungle.

His muscles also ached. Not just in his legs and feet from walking for the past two days, but his arms, his neck and back hurt. His feet even felt like they weighed a ton. Veers hadn't paid much attention to his aches, believing that they came from his previous fights and flight since the crash. 

Until an insistent pressure in his chest came to his notice. At first he had thought it was just another ache, but as time went by he discovered that it was becoming difficult to breathe. It felt like someone was pushing against his breastbone, trying to cave it in.

It became a problem along with several more over the hours. His vision played tricks on him; the jungle seemed to warp in front of him. Imploding and exploding, twisting and churning until he couldn't even keep his own balance anymore.

Veers became afraid of what was happening to him. He didn't understand what was happening or how it could happen. He thought Exar Kun might have something to do with his condition. 

"Kun!" He croaked. "You bastard, is this what you do to people when you don't get your way!" The Dark Lord did not answer him.

Veers grabbed a hold of a thin tree as the jungle spun around him. The stranded Imperial groaned as he slid down to the jungle floor, his nails digging into the trunk uselessly as he clawed for support. He gave up and just rested against the trunk. The Colonel pulled at his shirt in hopes of relieving the pressure against his chest but to no avail.

He glanced up one more time at the sun and tried to stand back on his feet. But he couldn't find the strength and when he thought he was ready to pass out from what he thought was heat exhaustion, he felt the dark presence of the Dark Lord.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." The bodiless voice chastised in his ear after an hour of resting at the base of the tree. Veers eyes flickered in the direction of the voice, his head remaining still, but he couldn't see any ghostly image of Kun. "Look at you..."

"Is this your doing?" Veers asked. Speaking made him cringe. It felt like someone was using sandpaper to scrape the inside of his throat each time he spoke. How he wished he could bring the canteen to his lips and quench his thirst.

"I would love to take the credit, Colonel, but alas it is not my doing." Kun replied, a soft breeze momentarily cooled the Colonel. Kun's image appeared kneeling in front of Veers and the man picked up the canteen which Veers' hands had fumbled with a few seconds ago. "You want this don't you?"

"You are a real bastard..." Veers coughed sharply. He stared at the canteen, glanced up at Exar Kun and back at the bottle. Understanding dawned on him with the next coughing fit.

He was ill and Kun had told him the truth. What did the survival manual from the Academy warned him about the essentials needed to survive? Something about _"Don't drink the water."_

"I can make it go away." Kun offered, breaking into his thoughts. "All you have to do is agree to be my apprentice."

"No." Veers shook his head defiantly and fought his way to his feet, he used the tree for support. "I don't want anything to do with your hokey religion. This...this illness will pass in due time."

"So you continue to refuse my offer?" Exar Kun asked in an eerily calm voice that made the hairs on Veers neck and arms stand up involuntarily. He understood that the Dark Lord would be angry with him for refusing to do what he wanted. Lord Vader would also have been angry with him as well. But Veers was confused at how the Dark Lord was taking it. He expected him to lash out at him with some force ability, like choking him to death, not show calmness expected from a Jedi.

"I told you once and I'll tell you again." Veers began, folding his arms across his chest as if the motion would give him more courage to face the entity. "I wish to have nothing to do with the Force."

"So be it. Do not expect me to help you survive on Yavin IV from now on." Kun saluted sharply, mockingly before his specter disappeared from sight.

Colonel Veers just stared at the spot where the ghostly figure had stood moments ago. He wondered if he had made the right choice in refusing the Sith again. 


	13. Rescued At Last?

**__**

Chapter XII - Rescued At Last?

Maximilian Veers covered his mouth by habit as he coughed. He sat in front of a small fire beneath a huge tree, his canteen hanging above the flames by some low hanging branches and emitting silvery steam from its opening. He had chastised his-self several times in the past two hours for his stupidity and neglect in boiling the river water. 

"I deserved this." He muttered in a low voice, staring at the flickering flames. He felt slightly better since he began boiling the water. The dizzy spells had subsided for the moment and he was able to walk again but he noticed whenever he spun around too fast, the world would spin and topple him off balance. He still had the muscle aches, tightness of the chest and the coughing fits, but he was glad that so far no new symptoms of whatever bacteria he consumed were showing up.

But that didn't mean more would come in the near future.

Veers didn't have a medical kit with the proper medication to cure him of his illness. All he knew he could do was wait it out and hopefully find a familiar herb in the jungle that would help. So far it hadn't passed and he hadn't found anything to help him. What was worse was he came close twice to calling Exar Kun for help. But his own pride and stubbornness kept him from having to owe that dark entity any debts or having to actually accept his offer of apprenticeship.

The Colonel pulled his stolen jacket around his torso tighter as the daylight of his second day began to fade away. He poked at the embers of the fire, trying to keep them glowing red-hot and bring warmth to his exposed form. When he felt that the water in the canteen boiled long enough he took it down and capped it. It would be an hour before the water was cold enough to drink.

"Humph, I have no where to go so I'm in no hurry." He laughed hoarsely as he realized he was talking to himself. _At least it's better than not talking._ He thought, his makeshift fire poker absently drawing into the earth at his feet. He wished he had someone to talk to besides the Dark Lord and the jungle around him.

Like his late-wife.

Veers sighed miserably as the memories of his wife came back at him in a rush. He missed her deeply and wished he had been there when whatever supernatural entity existed had taken her away from him. He was a Major at the time currently busy in quelling an uprising on some backwater world he wished to forget, when the call had come in from Corulag.

The memories were so vivid that Veers temper flared in a brief burst of anger. He tossed the fire poker into the flames and watched as the life-less blazes' dance crescendos temporarily before settling down at a soothing flicker. It was another reason why he disliked the Rebellion and wanted to smash their forces in each encounter with them.

They had denied him of visiting his wife in her last dying days, because they wanted to stir up trouble in the Outer Rim and forcing him to stay behind to stop them. His life had never been the same after his wife's death, even his relationship with his son, Zevulon, was walked on a thin wire. No matter what he tried to do, his son kept creeping further and further away from him.

"I wish you were here." He said out loud, mournfully. 

To get rid of the aches Veers stood from his spot next to the campfire and stretched, listening to the pops and crunches as bone and muscle were pulled and twisted. Uncontrollably a yawn escaped his lips, although it was twilight he was becoming dreadfully tired. He knew this to be the result of the illness he had foolishly infected himself with by drinking contaminated water. But there was nothing he could do about it so he had stopped complaining, for the moment anyway.

He grabbed another long stick and poked at the flames before resettling himself on the ground. He would stay up for a couple more hours before letting the sandman snatch him away for the night. There wasn't much to do except think and stare at the fire.

Involuntarily he found himself staring up at the sky in hopes of spotting the Death Star or perhaps an orbiting Imperial Star Destroyer. But all he saw were the twinkling stars and the crescent of the gas giant Yavin and the occasional after-thrust of a departing rebel ship.

Exar Kun was right about the rebels' hastiness in leaving the moon. Ever since Kun had abandoned him hours ago, Veers had noticed the activity in the sky had increased somewhat. But it wasn't quite heavy yet like it would be in a few days. Veers was also slightly thankful that the rebels were lifting off often, the departing ships had suddenly become from something he loathed to something he looked forward to seeing and hearing. 

The ships had become the equivalent of a North Star for him. He knew that, as so long as the rebels had ships that needed to depart he wouldn't get lost on his way to the temples, which was the location of the hidden rebel base. As to what he would do once he arrived and the rebels were still there, he hadn't quite gotten that far in his plans to escape the planet.

He supposed he could try and steal a ship and pray that his people wouldn't blast it out of the sky. That is if he survived the rebels' attempts first. Veers knew he was no pilot, he could fly vessels but when it came to dogfighting he usually left that to the actual starfighter pilots. 

"I'll have a plan...I always have a plan.' He told himself more to reassure than actual confidence. "And if I don't have one...well, I could always do what Rorishan Dorf did in _Raiders' Crusade of Doom_." Veers laughed at the idea of him sneaking up to a young rebel and knocking the daylights out of him. Then stealing his uniform that doesn't fit properly only to have another rebel officer approach and demand why he was out of uniform and a mess. And once he had enough of the obnoxious officer he'd end up punching him in the jaw just to shut him up.

"Though its not that bad of an idea." Veers considered and rubbed at the two-day-old stubble on his chin. He laughed at the thought of him using battle tactics from holofilms. "Colonel Veers, the Imperial commander of holofilm tactics!"

"Colonel!" Veers jumped at the sudden sound of a voice calling his rank. In doing so he knocked over a burning log that sent smaller pieces of ember beyond the fire ring. Quickly Veers stamped out the fugitive embers and dowsed the campfire with the water from his canteen, smoke and steam rising up into the night sky and past the jungle canopy above.

The Imperial hurriedly moved away from the campsite and unholstered his blaster pistol. Cautiously and carefully he pressed himself up against a tree and peered around to view the campsite. He had a very good view of the fire ring and where he had sat moments ago. 

Insects sang and avians and critters chattered, the voice had not upset the song of life in the jungle but it made Veers strain to listen for footsteps of humanoids approaching. He couldn't make out anything that indicated a party was approaching. He did though hear occasionally the rustling of foliage and immediately assumed it to be some animal or predator near by. Though it still didn't stop him from glancing in the direction of the disturbance to make sure.

"Colonel Maximilian Veers!" A second voice called, this one sounded mechanical like the owner was wearing a breather or speaking through a comlink. It kind of reminded him how stormtroopers sounded when they spoke through their internal comlinks embedded inside their helmets.

__

Could the rebels actually be smart enough to devise up such a plan to capture me? He worried and shifted his position to glance on the other side of the tree trunk, his blaster held tightly before his chest.

"Colonel Veers!" A third voice called and the stranded officer decided that there was no way the rebels could have learned who he was in his brief encounter with them, much less his rank. 

Slowly and cautiously he stepped around the tree and called out in reply, "Who goes there!" Silence followed his reply and Veers began to worry whether he had made the right choice. _What if the rebels' had somehow found out who I was? What if the passenger manifest of the Imperial shuttle had survived the crash and they decoded and read it?_ Veers shook his head in disagreement. Even if they had found the manifest there was no way they could have identified the lone survivor as Colonel Maximilian Veers.

"It has to be an Imperial search party." Veers concluded softly to himself.

"Imperial Search & Rescue Team Chimera!" Came the reply in a mechanical voice that was now much closer than it was minutes earlier. "Where are you, sir?"

"Over here!" He replied and seconds later a group of stormtroopers wearing the shoulder neck collar colors of Search & Rescue and a couple disgruntled officers that looked like they wished to be anywhere but here, stepped out of the forest and into the small camp site.

Veers began to relax and re-holstered his blaster and stepped out into the camp. "By the Emperor, am I glad to see you guys." Maximilian said cheerfully, pleased that he would be getting off this rock without having to finish his journey to the hidden rebel base or having to face Exar Kun again. 

"Uh..." Stammered the lead stormtrooper as Colonel Veers approached. The man shifted his blaster rifle in his hands and glanced back at one of the officers. Veers gaze flickered to the officer and blinked twice in surprise.

"Pliskin?" He said in disbelief. The officer did resemble Lieutenant Andrew Pliskin a lot but there was no way it could be the dead officer he had buried yesterday by the river. Yet, the young man stood before him now with the rank insignia of a Major.

"Huh?" _Major Pliskin_ said as soon as he realized that Colonel Veers was talking to him. "You alright, buddy?" Veers noted the lack of 'sir' at the end of the question. Something in the back of Veers mind told him that there was something wrong with the picture but he couldn't quite figure it out yet.

"It looks like he may have a concussion, sir." Said the other officer who was pointing at Veers. The Colonel's hand felt around the makeshift bandages and furrowed his eyebrows between his eyes in confusion.

"It don't matter. Jaxon, stun him." Pliskin ordered. 

"What the...?" Veers stared at the group of Imperials slack jawed and when he noticed the rifle of the lead trooper and the pistols of the two officers rise he began to back away rapidly and grab for his own blaster.

It snagged.

Colonel Veers glanced down at his blaster and noticed that the barrel sight had caught onto the holster. He yanked at the weapon desperately as he continued to back away. He glanced up to check on the progress of the Imperials and lost his footing as the back of one foot rammed into a small fallen tree trunk.

He fell over backwards a stun bolt whizzing past him, his blaster finally coming free as he landed on his back. He crawled away backwards from the group and protested. "What's going on? What do you think you're doing!" He said angrily. "I'm a friendly you idiots!"

He raised his blaster pistol and fired at one of the stormtroopers. The sizzling ruby bolt went through the trooper and burned a hole in a distant tree. The stormtrooper himself suddenly began to shimmer and fade away as if he was never there before. The other stormtroopers but one also began to disappear. The remaining trooper himself melted away to reveal a female in a tan uniform welding an Imperial issued blaster rifle.

Veers glanced at the two officers and their attire had changed from the crisp olive and black uniforms of the Empire to blue, black and white clothing of Alderaanian uniforms. He stared in disbelief and horror as he inched his way away from the three humans.

"Rebels." He whispered and blacked out as a cerulean energy bolt filled his vision.


	14. In Rebel Hands

**__**

Chapter XIII - In Rebel Hands

__

"In trouble are we?" Exar Kun's voice broke through the void in his mind. There was nothing. Nor was there an up or down, left or right. A person could easily contract vertigo where he was. Wherever here is_. Maximilian Veers thought as his mind drifted in the vastness of nothingness. He could sense that he was somewhere but he could not see or hear where here was. Nor could he feel his own body. It was a strange feeling to experience when you're semi-unconscious._

"This is your fault." Veers answered nastily. "You are the one who created that illusion, tricking me into believing I was rescued by my own people!"

"This is as much as your fault as it is my own." Kun replied in a casual tone. If he was still angry about Veers refusing to become his apprentice, he certainly did not allow it to show in his voice as he talked. "All you had to do was accept my offer and become my apprentice. Is it too much for a man to have an apprentice one last time?"

"You want me for more reasons than just to be your kriffing apprentice!" Veers snapped.

"Perhaps I do have other intentions for wanting you." Kun partially admitted, never rising to the flaring temper of the stunned Imperial. "All masters have intentions for their apprentices. Does not a blacksmith wish for his apprentice to surpass him and carry on the tradition? Does not a soldier such as yourself wish for a son to follow in his footsteps?"

"Your plans for me are different than following the path of one's elders!" 

"No different." Kun replied. "I want to train you in the ways of the Force and show you the Sith teachings. I am already dead, what could I possibly do with you other than pass on my knowledge and continue my legacy as the last Dark Lord of the Sith?"

"Obviously you can do something if you can trick me." Veers said. 

"Minor things compared to what I could do when I was alive. But should I leave this planet, I will walk into oblivion." The entity said in an almost mournful and angry tone. "The Jedi feared me long ago. The Jedi, if any are left today, could fear the apprentice of Exar Kun!"

"The last Jedi died a week ago." Veers stated. "Lord Darth Vader had killed him. I believe the Jedi feared him and his Master more than they would ever fear you or any apprentice of yours. Besides...if I wanted to be feared, I'll get it through my military career in the Armed Forces."

Veers felt the anger of the Sith simmer and intensify as he told the ghost that he was practically nothing compared to the current existing Sith Lords. Moments what felt like years passed as Veers waited for the Dark Lord's outburst or reply. But none came and Veers wondered what trickery Exar Kun would do against him the next time.

He hoped he wouldn't be on the planet for much longer to find out.

"He has a fever." A female's voice nearly yelled, or at least it seemed that she was yelling since his head throbbed in pain, to someone beyond Veers' senses. "It might explain why he so foolishly walked right up to us."

__

No, that Sithspawn named Exar Kun is the reason. Veers wanted to tell her but he knew that she would never understand nor believe that their was a Sith ghost floating around on the moon.

"Who cares?" A young male's voice replied. "I say we kill him."

"No." A third familiar voice snapped. It was the same voice that had belonged to the facsimile Lieutenant Pliskin, Veers remembered. "He's more valuable to us alive than dead."

"A good Imperial is a dead Imperial." Malice dripped off the voice of the young male. "He destroyed my homeworld, remember!"

"How do you know he was the one who pulled the trigger?" The female countered.

"He's an Imperial!" The young male replied irrationally.

"And a Colonel to boot." The fake Pliskin added then continued. "And therefore he may have useful information which we can use to bring the Empire and its Emperor to its knees."

"He'll pay for his crimes later, but not right now Jaxon." The female said. "Right now, he has a fever and we need to get back to the shuttle."

"Fine." Jaxon replied, irritably and Veers could hear the rebel walk away. 

He chose that time to groan in misery and shift his body as feeling began to return to him. His hands and arms felt like he had two tons of weight on top and it took a moment to realize he was the one that was on top of them. Sometime after he had fallen unconscious from the stun bolt the rebels must have bound his hands behind his back.

"He's waking up." The female exclaimed to the others.

Veers groaned again and tried to sit up but a pair of hands forced him back down. He opened his cerulean eyes to gaze up into the face of a mildly handsome female. She had dark hair with blonde highlights that helped her amber eyes stand out more. Her face was soft but Veers could see war hardened lines around her eyes and mouth. 

__

This woman has seen a lot. He concluded and then said out loud. "Where am I?"

"We're still at your campsite." She replied. There was no trace of malice or anger in her voice as she spoke to him. But her eyes spoke otherwise. They shined with coldness that told Veers she wanted him dead as much as the rebel named Jaxon did.

Veers sat up abruptly and tried to move away from the woman. The realization that he was in danger finally had seeped into his addled brain despite the fact that he knew who these people were. The female grabbed Veers by the shoulder and placed the barrel of her blaster rifle underneath his jaw.

"Don't give me a reason to grant Jaxon's wish." She warned him. "You are now a prisoner of the Rebel Alliance, if you refuse to cooperate your life will be terminated without a moments hesitation. Should you cooperate with us, you will live longer and perhaps a fruitful life on some backwater world."

"Then shoot me." Veers growled between gritted teeth. He could see the young rebel named Jaxon smile deviously as he pulled his blaster out to grant the Imperial's request.

"Put that away!" Snapped the third member of the rebel party. He was much older than the two that accompanied him. He had gray streaks already stretching through his dirty blonde hair. His mustache was peppered with white and was thick. The rebel wore the usual colors and style of Alliance troopers; the only thing he lacked was the white helmet and a force pike.

Jaxon shifted gazes between the old rebel and the prisoner. He also wore similar garbs like the old man except he had a set of blood-stripes down the sides of his pant legs. He had a boyish face that easily said he was from Alderaanian upper-class descent that was topped with a mop of red-brown hair cut short to a crewcut and gray eyes that spoke of intelligence despite his current irrational behavior. 

After a moments thought the rebel re-holstered the blaster, most likely believing that defying the old man's order wasn't worth satisfying his thirst for revenge. "I am going to put in a request to be his executioner when it comes to killing him." He finally said, settling with the idea that he would be able to still get revenge against another Imperial assigned to the late-Death Star.

Veers sighed in relief against his will. He was semi-glad that he would get to live a little longer and perhaps to take advantage of a future opportunity to escape from his captors. It also meant he would be susceptible to interrogation should they make it back to the base. Inwardly he cringed at the very idea.

The old man approached Veers and the female rebel. "How is he, Lana?" He asked her, ignoring Veers for the moment.

"His head is fine and nothing which a Two-One Bee can't stitch up when we get back to the base." Lana answered, then returned her gaze to the Colonel and pointed at his side. "He might have a couple fractured ribs or just severely bruised, I couldn't really tell with him unconscious and I am no medical doctor myself."

"You said he has a fever, from what?" 

"I don't..." Lana began but was interrupted by Colonel Veers.

"Whatever is in the river water here." He answered for the rebel, coughing a couple times. The old rebel's eyes cast down to glance at Colonel Veers inquisitively. Maximilian Veers could have sworn he saw ill will flicker in his gray eyes when he had interrupted the rebel female. Veers hoped that wasn't the case, he was already in a bad enough shape that he did not need to be abused on the way to their base.

Much to the survivor's relief, the old man reclined from punishing the Imperial for talking out of line. Instead he resumed talking to Lana, "Make sure he can not go anywhere we will be setting up camp here for the rest of the night before we head back to the shuttle."

"Yes, Sid." Lana acknowledge. She stood and towered over Colonel Veers who tried to resist the urge to look up. "Come on." She commanded and when Veers did not stand she yanked him to his feet with a strength that she should not have had. Grabbing his restrained arm, she directed him over to one of the trees nearest to the small fire the rebels had re-lit.

Veers remained silent and obeyed his captor's commands to sit at the base of the thin tree. There was no point in trying to escape them now, not while he was cuffed and an eager young Alderaanian wanted him dead. Plus, he couldn't survive on his own restrained and would only be slowed down. He winced visibly when the female un-cuffed him and pulled his arms further back and around so that his wrists were extended far enough on the other side of the trunk to be re-cuffed. "That hurts." He said between gritted teeth.

"Good." She came around to crouch in front of him and pulled up his olive shirt, ignoring his protests. Gently she pressed her fingers against the tender flesh of his blue and black ribs. He grunted when she pressed too hard and she eased the pressure of her probe. He could see her intently studying his injury and wondered why she was trying to show that she hated him and yet make sure he wouldn't drop dead on them. 

Her fingertips brushed across the large bruises along his side, he squirmed as she passed a ticklish spot that miraculously survived the battering which his side had sustained during the flight from the Death Star and later the X-wings. Her attention moved away from his side to the bandaged gash on his skull. Obviously satisfied with the condition of his injuries, she stood on her feet and stared down at the Colonel.

"You know, you are not that bad looking." She whispered and leaned forward and stretched out a hand. Her fingers stroked the side of his face and across his lips. The last time he had ever felt the touch of a woman were several years ago when he was still a married man instead of a widowed husband. He still remembered his wife as if it were yesterday when he last saw her, wrapped in his arms and the bedsheets inside their Corulag estate master bedroom. They had spent the night in each other's warm embrace, taking great pleasure in each other's company and the love they created and shared together. 

He remembered gently brushing his fingers through her wavy hair, dirty blonde a few shades darker than his own-almost a light brown, and her sweet smile as she stared up back at him with her amber brown eyes. The way the corners of her mouth curled upward in a smile always found a way to crack a smile on his normally stony expressions. He had loved her and knew he would have died for her if given the chance.

Then fate took her away from him when he was away on tour with the Armed Forces. Denying him the chance to sacrifice his life for hers. He had lost his faith in whatever supernatural beings existed when a disease that should have been easily eradicated by today's medical sciences claimed her.

Cancer.

Of all things that could kill a person, cancer, a nearly eradicated disease, had taken her away from him and his young son. The doctors had said it was too late for her, that she had kept the symptoms of the disease hidden from everyone. By the time she had decided to see a doctor about the pains, the cancer was in its final stages and treatment could only make her hold onto the threads of life for a little while longer before she passed away.

He had wanted to inflict his rage at the doctors that failed to save her. He had wanted to pursue death to run away from the grief that hammered into his heart but instead had chosen for the first few weeks to call Tannab fruitbeer and Corellian whiskey as friends. After he had gotten past the first stages of grief he had buried himself in the military and tried to raise his son, which proved to be quite difficult to do as a single-parent.

He still grieved for his wife. He had found it difficult to let her go. He had tried to move on but something would always remind him of her. So he had vowed to her grave that he would never pursue another woman so long as he lived. That she would always be the one. The single woman who had won his heart and would always fill it.

His only regret was that the words were easier said than done.

"Too bad you are an Imperial, I might have liked to get to know you a little more." With that, Lana straightened and turned away from him to join her two companions. Veers staring after her departing back, memories of his wife still swimming through his thoughts.

He clamped his jaw tightly and tried to fight back the emotions that assaulted him, his cheek muscles rippling from the effort. Sorrow for the loss of his wife, anger at himself for not being there, hatred for the rebels, and an emptiness that once housed his soul mate all at once intertwined together. 

Veers closed his eyes and tried to make the memories go away, he did not want to appear weak in front of the rebels. He did not want to give them a reason to taunt him and pry information from him by using his emotions for his wife against him. Internally he cried, externally he was hard as a shell, a ripple in his cheek the only sign of the conflict of emotions warring inside him. 

Veers opened his blue eyes again.

Lana was staring at him intently, Veers thought she saw what was happening with him. But she gave no further sign if she knew or not, she watched him for a moment longer before turning to answer something the young rebel had said.


	15. The Lecturer Lectures

**__**

Chapter XIV - The Lecturer Lectures

**__**

DAY THREE

"Wake up stinking bantha feces." Someone yelled into his ear and when he did not wake up fast enough, stars swirled across his vision as he desperately tried to suck in air after a booted foot found its way into his bruised side. Colonel Veers coughed and gasped, keeling over in pain, as far as the cuffs would allow, as he tried to regain the natural rhythm of his lungs.

"Jenos! You idiot!" Chastised the woman and Veers heard a fist impact the face of the rebel, Jenos Jaxon. The two rebels started to argue until their leader had silenced them both with his booming and commanding voice.

"Enough!" Said Sid Arrid, scowling at the two bickering rebels. "Lana, check to see if he will be alright."

Veers continued to gasp as Lana pushed him back to lean against the trunk of the tree. She checked his side which had darkened around the area which Jaxon's boot had left an imprint. Veers by now had pretty much regained control of his own lungs, occasionally inhaling sharply when the pain became to great.

"Idiot." Lana muttered under her breath. "I think this time a couple ribs broke if not fractured."

"Is this--" Veers coughed and gritted his teeth as she probed his side for the third time since his capture, it was also difficult to talk when your side was on fire, "--how you treat prisoners?" Lana uncuffed him from the tree and tied his hands in the front.

"Normally, no." She replied unconsciously as she pulled out a medkit from a backpack and began applying a bandage around his ribs to stabilize any fractured or broken bones. Maximilian Veers stared at her in confusion as he held his arms up and out of Lana's way. One moment she hated him for his loyalties to the Galactic Empire, the next she was talking to him as if he was a rebel separatist himself. 

__

Women...man's greatest paradox of the human species. You can't live with them and you can't live without them. Nor can you try to understand them. 

"The Empire would not treat its prisoners this way." Veers stated as if he believed it, which was the case and he should know from experience. He had to deal with prisoners before, both rebels and criminals. Not once did the Empire mistreat its prisoners and if a soldier had abused a prisoner without a legitimate reason that soldier was reprimanded later. All this he explained to her and she abruptly and purposely tightened the bandage so that he grunted and winced in pain. "What did I say?"

"Tell that to my brother." She spat at him. "Who was beaten and then shot into his own grave he was forced to dig while being ridiculed and beaten. And do you know what? The soldiers that committed this crime got away with it scot-free!" She stood and yanked Veers to his feet.

"You can not judge the Empire based on the actions of a few!" He argued as Lana lead him over to the others. "All forms of government have corrupt individuals, it is unavoidable and inevitable."

"Then your government is completely corrupt for turning a blind eye at the men who devised and constructed the Death Star and allowed a defenseless and innocent world be destroyed." Jenos Jaxon put in angrily.

"Alderaan was a military target." Veers said defensively then stepped back when Jaxon started to rush him but was stopped by the strong handgrip from Sid. The young rebel glowered maliciously at the old leader before turning away and marching in the direction that Veers had come from yesterday before he became their prisoner.

"If I were you, Imperial, I would refrain from mentioning Alderaan." Sid warned and then motioned for Lana to escort Veers after the fuming Jaxon.

The rebels and their Imperial prisoner walked through the jungle forest of Yavin IV at a slow place, mainly to remain with Colonel Veers as his own pace gradually slowed forcing the entire group to slow down with him. Jenos Jaxon showed his displeasure at the speed that they walked by throwing curses into the air or back at the Imperial behind him. Every now and then he would turn around and try and bait Colonel Veers with retorts and insults.

But Veers merely shrugged them off or returned with an equal or greater sardonic reply. Lana or Sid stopped the two from their verbal duel, they found it amusing and it helped pass the time. Occasionally the two rebels had to get involved to prevent each other from going for the other's throat.

"This is going to take forever." Jaxon complained as Veers' pace slowed to a casual walk. The Imperial prisoner was sweating profusely, his olive uniform shirt was mostly soaked from the pouring sweat and compared to the others he looked like he had recently walked through a downpour. "What is wrong with him?"

"He's ill, Jaxon." Lana said, defending the Imperial involuntarily and too Maximilian Veers' surprise. "I gave him a dose of the antibiotic from the medkit, but apparently it has no effect on whatever he contracted and if he has a virus, I have no vaccination to counter it." She explained to the young Alderaanian.

"And we're keeping him around?" Jaxon said unhappily, scowling over his shoulder at Veers and from the front of the group. "What if we contract what he has?"

"Then we contract it." Sid answered. "Once we return to the base, a nice swim in the bacta tank and some needles poked into us and we'll be fine. So quit your complaining."

"I'll be happy to spread whatever disease I have to you." Veers stated coldly in Jaxon's direction. "If I'm lucky enough, you'll die from it."

"If we're lucky enough, you'll die first." Jaxon retorted, sneering before returning his attention to what was in front of him. 

"I am assuming he was never like this before Alderaan?" Veers quietly asked Lana who walked at his side and slightly behind him and occasionally prodded him with her blaster to urge him onward. It wasn't as though he was going to do anything, anyway.

Veers didn't even believe he could run very far, what with the way his chest felt whenever he took a breath. The burning pain in his ribs was not helping his situation very much, either. He knewhis situation was deteriorating with each passing day. Veers could tell just by the way the jungle suddenly felt cold one moment or searing hot the next that his body was injured and in shock. He was also sweating heavily even for the environment he was currently in. 

"I wouldn't know." Lana replied, trying to keep her emotions from seeping into her tone. 

Veers could tell she was angry either at him or something that the Empire had done. 

She continued, "He joined the Rebellion shortly after he heard of Alderaan's destruction."

"I see," Veers said, the answer to her present malice dawning on him at last. He was about to say something else regarding Alderaan, but refrained from commenting. He did not want the Rebels to react negatively toward him while he was at their mercy.

"Would it be possibleto rest for a moment?" Veers requested and stopped anyway, regardless of whether he had permission to do so or not. He knelt down to the leaf and dirt covered ground and carefully sat down, wincing only once as a jab of pain shot up his side. Lana glowered down at the Colonel but did nothing to stop him.

Jaxon on the other hand looked once over his shoulder and demanded, "Why is he sitting? Drag him back to his feet, Lana!"

"Jaxon, enough." Sid interfered and took a seat on a dead log. "We have been walking for hours and it is time we take a break. My feet are killing me anyway."

"Fine," the arrogant rebel sat as far away from Veers as possible; Lana sat across from him, her blaster and eyes watching his every move.

"Is your brother's death the reason you joined the rebels?" The Colonel questioned curiously. 

He wanted to know the real reasons why this woman was running around the galaxy with a bunch of traitors and criminals. Upon first glance she did not look like the type to commit treason or kill innocents. She did not even look like a soldier! She looked more like she belonged on some backwater world farming, or at least that's what the impression Veers got.

"No." She answered after hesitating for a minute, thinking about whether she should tell an Imperial her reasons.

"Why?" He asked.

"Because the Empire is evil." She replied and sounded like she believed it completely.

"What has the Empire, _as a government_," he added quickly before Jaxon could say anything, "done to be considered _evil_?"

"I guess the stories are true. The Empire's officers are indeed ignorant of what goes on." Lana said. Veers looked at her perplexed.

"What are you talking about?" He asked quietly.

"The evils of the Empire!" she began, "the slavery, the prejudice, the oppression of freedom and rights." 

Veers incredulouslaughter cut off her explanation. A coughing fit finally silenced him.

"_What_ slavery? The only forced laborthe Empire uses are creatures classed as non-sentient by xenologists, and, of course, the criminal class as part of theirpunishment," Veers countered, expressing skepticism. 

"Prejudice? This is inherent in nearly everyspecies: Humans, Bothans, Falleen, and so on. And don't give me that look. When was the last time you looked upon a non-Human and did not in some way or to some degree think to yourself,_ disgusting_?"

"I..." Lana cut off, unsure how to answer the Imperial properly. Veers did have a point about the issue, however. Her face scrunched up in concentration as she tried to think of a counter or change the subject, and after a moment she spoke again. 

"It is indeed normal for a species to have bigots amongst their numbers, but it is abnormal when the _entire_ race is prejudiced toward every other species aside from non-mainline Humans, or for a government to encourage its people to be prejudiced toward all others."

"That is incorrect." Veers argued. "The Yevetha are prejudiced toward everyone who is not a Yevethan. It is part of their culture dating back thousands of years. Will you call them _evil_ for something that is natural for them? Besides, the majority of the Empire is certainly not racist. There perhaps are some officers and stormtroopers who were reared and educated to be prejudiced toward other beings, but again that is normal for any race."

"Your Emperor is prejudiced." Jaxon insisted.

"What proof do you have?" Veers asked, glancing in the rebel's direction.

"He's decreed that only Humans can serve in the Empire." Jaxon provided.

"Again that is incorrect. Non-mainline Humans...aliens, if you will, _do_ serve in the Empire, both within the military and government." Veers said.

"Then how come _we_ never see any aliens in the military?" Lana asked him.

"Can you fit a Wookiee into a standard stormtrooper's armor?" he retorted and rendered the Rebels silent. "Or how about this instead: can you ensure that a Trandoshan Ensign, for example, will follow the orders of a Wookiee captain without allowing his own prejudice toward the Wookiee race get in the way? You well know there exists old animosities between the two."

"No." Lana quietly acknowledged, looking away.

"A single race military ensures order and swiftness." Veers continued. "Very little conflicting and chaotic factors are encountered. Humans are also the most numerous species in the Galaxy, and therefore, they will always be the majority everywhere except on the homeworlds of other species. Besides, the majority of the Galactic Military has always consisted of Humans.This dates back thousands of years into the Galactic Republic. A government that was corrupt and dying..." 

"This is ridiculous." Jaxon exclaimed and stood abruptly. "If you want hard proof that the Empire is evil, look what they did to my homeworld!"

"The Alderaans suffered that fate by allowing one misguided person to hold their fate in her hands. Your princess condemned the entire planet to death by refusing to reveal the location of an insurgent rebel base. She chose the lives of a few thousand criminals and outlaws, over millions and a planet. If anyone has shown a capacity for abuse and evilness, it is she."

"Princess Leia is not evil!" Jaxon shouted at the restrained Imperial, taking several steps toward him and un-holstering his pistol. Colonel Veers attempted to scramble to his feet, but Lana and Sid's blasters changed his mind for him. "She is not the one who built the Death Star and she is not the one who pushed the button that destroyed my world. She is not the one who gave the command for Alderaan to be destroyed."

"She chose to destroy a facility which had civilian workers, and which was designed to defend this galaxy. She is as much responsible for the consequences as the Grand Moff was for making such a threat, and then following throughwith the command or the Lieutenant who was stationed at the firing control."

"Enough!" Sid Arrid shouted and pointed his blaster at Jaxon warningly. "There will be no fighting amongst ourselves."


	16. A Bought Soul

**__**

Chapter XV - A Bought Soul

They traveled for a couple more miles; the tension between the Imperial and the Rebel soldiers was high. Colonel Veers, through his growing wariness, kept an eye on Jenos Jaxon. He knew he had touched a nerve when he tried to justify the actions of the Empire against the _peaceful_ planet of Alderaan. Veers main worry was not a matter of if, but a matter of when the hot-tempered rebel would attempt to take his captive's life.

To the rebel, Veers realized, one more Imperial's execution was just one more Alderaanian's death avenged. He also kept an eye on Lana. She had much the same reason to hate the Empire and all those who served it because of the death of her brother. That was the real reason Veers believed she opposed the Empire for.

Maximilian Veers bent forward as another coughing fit racked at his lungs and side. He heard rather than saw the group pausing to look back at him and felt the presence of Lana at his side. He didn't know if she was there in concern for his health or whether she was going to have to help carry him should he pass out.

"It is getting worse?" She questioned in a low whisper and Veers nodded in confirmation.

"Apparently so." He replied. "It feels like someone is taking sandpaper and scrapping away at my lungs." 

Lana pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and shook her head lightly, almost sadly. The Colonel narrowed his eyes slightly at her, studying her features. Despite all her hatred toward what he stood for, she still showed a caring concern for his well being. It baffled him, making him wonder whether she truly believed in her reason for hating the Empire.

Colonel Veers regained as much of his composure as a sickly man could before following his captors again.

"Why was your brother executed?" He asked Lana.

"Does it matter?" She replied stiffly.

"Yes." Veers' gaze met Lana's. "There is always a reason why one does something."

"Why do you serve the Empire?" She threw back at him, catching him off guard momentarily.

"I serve the current ruling and legitimate government," Veers replied, "like my fathers before me have done." Pride spoke with his words as he stared at the rebel. 

"Even when the Alliance wins the war and re-establishes the Republic?" She asked him and Veers raised an eyebrow at her.

"The Empire is the Republic." He reminded her. "Or at least what the Republic has become. You are too young to have experienced the turmoil and corruption that dominated the Republic...the dark times before Palpatine."

"And like you aren't." She retorted and Veers lightly scowled at her.

"I was just becoming a teenager when the Clone Wars broke out. I remember it well since it had come to my homeworld and my father was involved in the defense of the Republic against the Mandalorian Clones." Veers replied in a scornful tone. The very same tone he used during his lectures back at the Academy whenever one of his students spoke out of turn or did something wrong that both disappointed and angered him. 

"You still did not answer my question." Veers continued before Lana could come up with a reply to his last statement. "Why was your brother executed?"

"He..." She began. "He was at a protest rally a few days before. He was executed because he had attended that rally. An innocent rally that did no harm to anyone and they executed him for it!" Her eyes swelled red from holding back tears. She turned away from the Colonel, not wanting any weakness on her part to be seen.

"Which rally was this?" Veers inquired carefully.

"It was a Pro-Non-Human Rights Rally on Chandrilla, six years ago in the capital city." She answered after a moment.

Colonel Veers stopped and stared at the back of the female rebel as she continued to walk forward before she noticed he was no longer at her side. Lana glanced back at him both curiously and furiously for stopping. The others kept walking, paying no attention to the two that they were unknowingly leaving behind.

"You do not refer to the Chandrillan Massacre?" He softly asked.

"That is what it is commonly called, yes." She answered. Lana narrowed her eyes more in curiosity than in malice, or at least that is what Veers thought he read. Then they widened in both surprise and horror. "You...you weren't involved in that were you?"

"I..." He hesitated. Six years ago he was stationed at Chandrilla for his tour of duty. He was a Major then and he had been involved in an investigation into rumors of rebel terrorists working in the capital city when the riot had broken out. "I was part of an investigative team that was looking into several rumors of rebels seen in the capital when the riot broke out."

Lana studied the Colonel's features carefully. "You were the one on the LAV Chariot giving orders to the stormtroopers."

"I wasn't giving the orders." Veers denied. "I was overseeing the coordination of the troopers. My superior was the one who gave the orders for the men to open fire on the crowd."

"You are still responsible." Lana shouted at him. Her shout attracted the attention of the other two rebels and they began to walk back. "Next you are going to tell me you did not give the order to execute my brother."

"Your last name would not be Corbel, would it?"

"You...MURDERER!" She lunged at him.

Colonel Veers could not react fast enough to get out of her way as her body slammed into his, knocking them both to the ground. He fought against her as best he could. Lana's hands were wrapped around his throat doing their best to choke the life out of him.

"S...Stop!" He sputtered between breaths as he fought her grip around his neck. "I...didn't...order." He tried to tell her. Black spots were beginning to form in his vision from the lack of oxygen.

"Lana." Veers heard faintly to the side. Was it Jaxon or Sid that called her name? He couldn't tell. 

"You killed my brother!" She yelled into the Imperial's face even as his grip loosened on her wrists. Sid Arrid had to pull Lana Corbel off of the man before she succeeded in killing him, but too late to prevent him from passing out.

__

I tried to stop it. Veers last thought before disappearing into the realms of darkness one more time.

"Where is that group we captured in Hanna City a week ago?" Major Maximilian Veers inquired from one of the officers in the command center of the local garrison. Activity in the room was minimal as enlistees and officers went about their business.

"I believe they are being prepped for execution, Major." The officer replied then returned to the datapad in his hand. Veers frowned at this news. He stopped the officer from walking away from him before he was finished questioning the man.

"Already? The investigation into their activities has not been completed yet."

"I'm sorry, sir. But that is what I know." The officer said defensively. "You will have to talk to the liaison from Intel to find out more."

"I will." He turned away leaving the officer to go about his business once again. He walked down the corridor of the command level in the direction of the Imperial Intelligence's offices. He could not understand why they were already preparing the prisoners for an execution when the investigation was not finished.

"Major Veers!" Called out someone from behind him. He stopped and half turned to face the young woman who approached him at a brisk pace. She was carrying a datapad and looked like she was in a hurry to get a hold of him. When he turned his attention to her, her gait slowed slightly and she appeared to look relieved that she had finally caught up to him.

"Yes, what is it, Captain?"

"Sir, the information you requested on Erik Corbel." The Captain handed him the datapad and he glanced over the information. His once annoyed expression about the quickened execution of the captives turned to a deep and troubled frown.

"Come with me, Captain." He said, abruptly turning on his heel and nearly jogging down the corridor in a hurry.

"Sir?" She exclaimed from behind him, surprised at the turn of events.

"We have an execution to stop!" He replied over his shoulder as he turned a corner.

Major Veers ran at full speed down the corridor until he skidded to a halt in front of the Intelligence liaison's office. He did not stop to knock or let the computer announce his presence; he slapped his palm into the lockpad on the side and entered the office, startling the Colonel who was busily looking through datacards at the time.

"What is the meaning of this?" The Colonel demanded, standing up and looking very flustered at the intrusion.

"My apologizes for the intrusion, Colonel, but you need to call off the execution of Erik Corbel." Major Veers quickly stated, the Captain stood in the door right behind him giving the Intelligence Officer a 'I'm not with him' look.

"Why should I call his execution off, Major?" The Colonel demanded once again, eyes narrowed. Veers handed the Colonel the datapad with the information on Erik Corbel and he could see the man's blood run from his face as he read that information. "Are you absolutely certain?"

"The name sounded familiar, hence why I had his family background checked." Veers replied. "He's the Governor's nephew, sir."

"Frell!" The Colonel dropped the datapad on his desk and slapped the comm unit near his datacomp and barked orders at the man on the receiving end for the execution to be stopped. "What do you mean they are out of contact?"

"I have tried to comm them but they are not answering, sir."_ Came the reply over the comm unit._

"If Mr. Corbel dies, the Governor will have someone's head on a platter." Maximilian Veers said in a deadpan voice.

The Colonel stared at him knowing that it would be he whose head is lost. "Stop that execution, Major, or you can find yourself on some backwater world for the rest of your life."

He failed.

He and the Captain were driving up to the location where the rebel dissidents were to be executed and buried to only arrive too late to do something. They had arrived just in time to watch a black uniformed Intelligence officer put a blaster to the young man's skull as Corbel dug his grave and heard the familiar whiney sound of a blaster going off.

Veers watched in dismay as the bruised and beaten body of the Governor's nephew fell forward into the muddy grave with a smoking burn on the back of his skull. He had been standing in the speeder, shouting orders at the stormtroopers to stop the execution, knowing full well that they were futile as he watched the scene unfold too quickly for anyone to do anything.

He had failed to save the young man and his career.

"Just like you have failed to keep yourself from the clutches of the Rebellion." A very familiar voice said next to him and everything around him seemed to have suddenly been placed on pause. "And healthy..."

"What do you want now?" Veers said exasperatedly. A gray fog began to creep along the ground and appeared to consume the Imperials, speeders and the forest nearby. The fog then began to swirl rapidly in the center before the Colonel until the whirlpool rose into a gray funnel.

Maximilian Veers stood his ground even as the towering funnel approached him, tearing at his cloths, trying to unbalance him. But he refused to let the manifestation in his mind to overpower him. He almost took a step back in retreat when he thought the funnel was going to consume him just like the gray fog had done to the memory.

But at the last second it halted a mere foot away from him and began to shrink. Veers could make out a humanoid figure start to take shape within the ever-shrinking tornado. When the last wisp of the gray mist faded to his feet he knew who stood before him now.

Exar Kun.

"What do I want?" The Dark Lord apparition began. "Why nothing."

"I find that difficult to believe." Veers replied dubiously.

"Believe what you want, it is the truth." Kun continued, unfolding his arms from underneath his cloak and turning away from the Imperial Colonel. "I offer you power. Power that can help you get away from those rebels and that justice seeking blockhead."

"I've told you countless times before, I don't want your power. I know it will come with a price too much for me to willingly pay." He countered.

"Do you know what is happening to you in the real realm?" Kun switched tactics in to luring the stubborn human to accept his offer. Preventing the Colonel a chance to reply, the Sith spun around on Veers. 

"You are dying, Colonel."

"You lie." Veers defiantly said in a tight voice. "A trick to get me to accept your dark offer."

"No trick." Kun said and motioned with a hand off to the side. Some of the gray mist along the ground parted, giving way to an 'out of body experience' view of the three rebels and the sickly Imperial. Colonel Veers stepped forward and gazed down at his prone and pale form next to the burning campfire.

The older male, Sid Arrid, stabbed him in the right shoulder with a syringe from the medical kit that lay open next to him. "His condition is getting worse."

"Who cares." Veers heard Jenos Jaxon say in a mirthful tone, he was busy stroking the fire and watching the prisoner with a look, matching his tone of voice, that disgusted Veers. "He is only going to continue to get worse and die on us before we reach the base. So what is the point in helping him? Let him die. He deserves it." 

The man cares not whether I live or die._ He concluded._ He would see me suffer as justice for the death of his world, rather than help me survive to be tried by justice.

"I agree." Lana Corbel concurred with Jaxon for the first time since his capture. It did not surprise Veers that she would agree with him; after all she does believe that he had murdered her brother. 

"You see?" Kun's voice broke Veers' reflection and the Colonel turned his attention toward the dead man. "I do not lie."

"I do not feel like I am dying." Veers countered. He did not want to believe the Dark Lord but something in his voice nagged at the back of his mind. Something he did not want to admit.

"Of course not, you are unconscious." He replied derisively and then smiled one of those smiles that sent a chill down Veers spine. "Why don't you wake up and find out for yourself, Colonel?"

"What?" He asked, puzzled.

"WAKE UP!" He roared and Veers jumped.

"Wake up!" Sid exclaimed and shook the unconscious Imperial by the shoulder. Veers looked very pale and sick. The rebel could not understand why the antibiotics were failing to bring the man back to health.

A groan and blinking eyelids paused Sid from violently shaking the man back to the living. "This is all his fault." Veers mumbled in a hoarse voice as he opened his eyes.

__

The fault is yours. Came the ever-intruding voice of the Dark Lord.

"Mine?" Veers replied aloud and the older rebel stared at him incredulously. 

__

Do not tell me you have forgotten about drinking the river water.

"I have not forgotten nor will I forget you forcing me back to consciousness." He scolded the Sith Lord and heard the man's laughter in return.

__

You wish to be unconscious now that you know how your body feels. Kun said and Veers could imagine that annoying smirk on the dead man's face. The Sith was right, he wanted to be unconscious so that he could avoid the sickly and pained feelings he felt now. 

His entire body felt exhausted and it hurt to exert energy, to speak and even think. He felt voraciously thirsty and hungry, but he could have sworn he had drank and eaten hours ago. Then again, half a bar of rations and a few gulps of water would probably leave even a healthy person famished.

He did not know what it felt like to die from a disease, but he had heard stories that they were sometimes very painful and slow deaths. What confused him about this particular disease is that it worked incredibly fast. 

Veers swore that he had only begun drinking the local water two days ago.

"I had to wake you." Sid replied, unaware of the conversation that was taking place in the Colonel's mind. "If I had let you remain asleep, you may never have awoken ever again."

Veers brown eyes moved to look at the rebel sitting next to him with a canteen in his lap. "What?"

"You would not have awakened if I had let you continued to sleep." Sid repeated and helped the Imperial into an upright position so he could drink from the canteen. "Drink, you need it."

Veers refused the canteen and lowered himself back to the ground. He grimaced at the effort. "I do not want any."

"You'll die without water." Sid warned.

"And remain a prisoner of the Rebel Alliance?" Veers said defiantly, lowering his eyes to the fire and to the two rebels who sat on the other side watching him with malicious stares. Lana's did not look so baneful compared to Jaxon's. "I'd rather die first than to continue to remain in rebel hands."

__

Foolish prattle. 

"I didn't ask for your opinion."

"No one said anything." Sid said in confusion.

"He's delusional." Jaxon said and motioned with a hand that the Imperial had finally lost his mind.

__

They think you are crazy.

"No thanks to you." Veers reproached.

"Me?" Jaxon misunderstood.

__

I can end this.

__

And I am the galactic Emperor. He replied, falling silent and hoping that the rebels would not question his sanity any further then necessary. 

__

I can make you healthy again, I can even help you get rid of these rebels. Especially that annoying blockhead named Jenos Jaxon. Kun said and then added as bait._ Without using the Force._

How? He was curious and tired of fighting the Dark Lord. He wanted to be cured and he wanted the rebels gone. But he did not want to do it by having Exar Kun teach him how to through the Force. Therefore having to accept his offer.

__

Accept my offer and become my apprentice.

Veers groaned and closed his eyes. He should have known that the Sith Lord was going to have a price for his help. _You know my answer._

__

You are willing to die? Kun said, disbelieving. _Do you not want to see your son again?_

Zevulon. 

__

Of course I do. Veers sneered.

You can not do that if you are dead. Kun pointed out to the Colonel and he was quiet for several moments. In the meantime, Kun continued to press Veers into accepting his offer of apprenticeship. _Accept my offer and I will help you with whatever you need. Including getting back to Corellia and your child._

__

Whatever I need?

That is what I said, did I not?

Maximilian Veers fell silent as he thought about it. What harm was there really in accepting the ghost's offer? He was dying as they spoke and he saw no way of getting away from his captors. He also did not have a way off the planet and he realized it would only be a miracle of the Force if he succeeded in stealing a starship without getting shot by fleeing rebels.

And he wanted to see his son again. He wanted to see the boy grow into a man and make him proud as a leading officer in the Imperial military. He wanted to see the boy follow in his footsteps, but he could not do that as a dead man or stranded on this Force forsaken planet.

__

Well?

Help me first and then I'll decide. Veers replied. He could not believe that he was even considering accepting the Dark Lord's offer. He shuddered as an icy chill ran down the base of his spine at the thought of Death wrapping it's bony hands around his throat and choking the life out of him if he did not make a decision soon.

As a show of good faith, I'll cure you of Creek Fever. He heard Kun reply and thought he also heard a warning in the ghostly voice. Maximilian Veers knew what it meant, if he did not make a decision that Kun liked the man would make him wish he had died.

Creek Fever. So that is what he had contracted on this Force forsaken world. He had heard of it and only knew that it was fatal if not treated immediately. Unfortunately he did not know how to cure himself of the disease.

"Hey, wake up." Sid said, interrupting his train of thought and lightly smacking Veers across the cheek. The Colonel opened his eyes to stare up at the rebel, then scowled.

"Can no one get any peace around here?" He said sourly, his voice hoarse.

"Not for..."

"Shut up, Jaxon. I do not want to hear it right now." Sid snapped, glowering at the young Alderaanian rebel. He returned his attention back to the Colonel and sighed. "Still want to die?"

"No."

"I thought...so...What the hell is that?" Sid exclaimed as he stared slack jawed at a small lizard like rodent that crawled out from under the brush nearby. It skittered over to where Colonel Veers lay resting and climbed onto his chest. In its mouth was a Massassi tree flower.

Veers attempted to sit up in order to get away from the creature, but the noise it made-a small squeak-and that it placed the flower on his chest kept him still. The tiny creature squeaked again before skittering away over to one of the Massassi trees. Both the Imperial and the rebels stared in astonishment as the animal clawed at the purplish bark, shredding the bark into large pieces that were just small enough for the creature to still carry. 

"I do believe that this is the strangest thing I ever saw." Sid said, breaking the silence as the rodent returned with pieces of the bark and two others came over to deposit some more Massassi tree flowers before finally disappearing into the forest jungle once again.

"Uh..." Was all Veers could say.

__

Crush them into a powder and mix it into boiled water to create a fever-reducing tea. Colonel Veers heard in his mind.

"It is used as a fever-reducing remedy for Creek Fever." Veers told them and explained how to prepare the cure. Lana stood from her spot to prepare the boiling water while stealing glances at the dying Imperial. He had relaxed back to the ground and appeared to be lightly sleeping, but he would open his eyes again to watch Sid grind the plants by using the butt of his blaster and a tin cup. He would also glance at Lana to only end up catching her staring at him curiously.

"I tried to stop his execution." He said out of the blue. Lana glanced up from staring at the crackling flames of the fire to scowl at the sickly Imperial. "I thought I had recognized his name, when I confirmed who he was, I tried to get Colonel Salves to recall the prisoners." Veers paused to take a deep breath, cringe and let it out before continuing. "There was a problem with the communication dish that prevented us from contacting the stormtroopers and Agent Trell."

"And you are going to tell me you tried to race against time to stop the execution personally." She spat and almost gave in to the temptation to turn over the boiling water and let the Imperial die from Creek Fever.

"Yes."

"What?" She blinked at him.

"I did try that, but I was too late." He explained and sighed glumly. She stared at him, shock on her face.

"Is the water ready?" Sid interrupted and Lana was happy for the distraction.

"Yeah." She replied and brought the boiling hot water over to Sid. The older rebel poured the hot water into the tin cup and stirred the ingredients together until the water turned a purplish color.

"Help hold him up." Sid said and Lana obeyed by kneeling behind the Colonel and letting him use her as support to rest against as he sat up. Veers tried to take the tin up from Sid but the rebel kept a hand on it as the Colonel took a measured sip of the hot tea.

Veers made an expression that resembled nausea, as he drank the tea. "I do not suppose you have any sugar to cover the sour taste." He was already starting to feel slightly better then he had a few minutes ago before he began to drink the tea.

"You'll just have to live with it." Lana told him, no hint of any animosity in her voice.

__

And the fact that Kun pulled through on his word. He thought and wondered if he was going to learn to regret the next words coming out of his thoughts to the Sith Lord. 

You have yourself an apprentice.


	17. Déjà Vu

**__**

Chapter XVI - Déjà Vu

**__**

DAY FOUR

By morning Colonel Maximilian Veers felt a whole lot better then he had hours ago on his deathbed. Lana had said his fever had gone down severely but he was still a little hot. His appetite had also returned and so for breakfast he had another cup of the Massassi tree tea and two bars of rations that suddenly tasted sweet to the tongue. He was uncertain as to whether the tea actually tasted bitter which made him think the rations tasted sweeter or that it actually _did _make the rations taste sweeter. Either way, he really did not care so long as it was something to eat.

He ate his breakfast in silence while listening to Exar Kun instruct him on a couple calming techniques. Veers was surprised to learn that the Sith could actually be calm and had techniques to calm themselves. All the stories he had heard when he was young had told him the Sith were a volatile race of Force-users that practiced the arts of the Darkside of the Force.

__

That is what the Jedi want you to know. Exar Kun broke his lesson to correct his newly won pupil on the history of the Sith. _Our teachings are very similar to the Jedi's. We still use a lot of their methods to strengthen ourselves in the Force. The only difference between them and us is that we encourage our apprentices' to never suppress their emotions like the Jedi do. If anger is an emotion that allows us to unleash the raw power of the Force to further our goals and understand the Force, then so be it. It was because of this philosophy that the first of the Dark Jedi were expelled from the Jedi Order and banished to the Outer Rim. _

Maybe because they had a good reason. Did not the Dark Jedi abuse their power? Veers pointed out and cringed at the hissed reply.

Their reason was fear! Kun hissed angrily. _They were afraid to take the next step in the evolution of the Jedi! And because of that fear, it had paralyzed and allowed them to be slaughtered by the Sith. You did say a Sith was able to destroy the Jedi, correct?_

Yes. Lord Vader just slew the last one a week ago. Veers confirmed and took a measured sip of his tea. His brown eyes lifted toward the younger rebel returning from wherever he went and for some reason Veers did not want to know about. 

The evidence that proves that the Sith are superior...

"I see you're feeling a lot better." Jaxon jeered as he walked past their prisoner, interrupting Exar Kun. Veers did not like the tone of voice Jaxon used.

"Are you not satisfied with the death of thousands of Imperials when the Death Star was destroyed?" Veers asked. "Especially when among those thousands were the men who gave the order and acted out those orders?"

"No," was the young rebel's reply.

"I see." Veers said, picking up a sardonic tone. "How could I forget that you want every Imperial to pay for each Alderaanian that was killed. Even if they were not responsible and do not deserve..."

"My people did not deserve to be slaughtered!" Jaxon shouted, rearing around to face the Colonel with a flustered face. "So do not go preaching to me about serving justice to those who deserve it! As I see it, the entire Empire owes my people a lot and they will pay for it with their own blood!"

Veers stared up at the Alderaanian, the tin cup with the tea half way to his lips. _I finally found the nerve that makes him explode. This could prove useful in the future._

"Like I said before, if I had my way your blood would be added to the thousands that already died over Yavin!" Jaxon took a deep breath to calm himself. His face was still red with anger as he exhaled.

"Are you done?"

"You are either the dumbest Imperial I ever met, or you have a death wish." Jaxon said, fingering the butt of his blaster pistol at his side. Veers could see the eagerness in the young man's eyes as he contemplated whether he should kill the Imperial then and there.

"You two bicker far worse then Erik and I ever did." Lana interjected before Jaxon could come to a decision.

Veers smirked behind his cup of tea as the three rebels picked up their gear for the remaining trek to their waiting shuttlecraft. "Come on. Finish your breakfast. I want to get to the crash site before noon." Sid commanded and gave the Colonel a look that he won't tolerate anymore bickering or any stalling on the Imperial's part.

"Of course." Veers replied and drank the last of the bitter tea. He handed the cup back to Sid and slowly stood with the help of the old rebel. He groaned from the aches in his body and took a couple seconds to straighten. Despite that the tea helped him fight the sickness, his body still felt like it had been tossed around like a rag doll.

__

I don't suppose you have a lesson to relieve pain? He asked the Dark Lord. 

A soft chuckle was his answer. _Just practice the calming techniques and you won't notice the aches._

__

You are a lot of help.

You complain too much.

Veers sneered at that comment which then attracted a curious look from Lana. He gave her his best charming smile and Lana turned her gaze away from him. He hoped she wouldn't question him about his behavior. Because he had no way of making her understand that he was talking to a ghost without coming off as a deranged officer.

They were making good progress now that Colonel Veers was feeling better than he ever had since crashing on the jungle moon. Every now and then Veers would recognize a familiar landmark where he had passed in retreat from the crash site. In a matter of hours they had reached his first campsite, the dead toppled tree with the hanging vines. 

Maximilian suppressed an involuntary shudder as he recalled what had happened that night. He could still see the vivid images of Grand Moff Tarkin's head exploding into a ball of fire just like the colossal space station had when the rebellion succeeded shoving a proton torpedo down its throat. It unsettled him knowing that a million good men and women had died in an instant.

He wondered if the rebel responsible for the fatal shot regretted killing all those people. People, who served their Empire and Emperor on board a space station--meant to keep the peace and order in the galaxy--who never gave a second thought that they would die today, tomorrow, or sometime in the near future. 

__

People who were just as innocent as the Alderaans. He thought remorsefully.

"May I ask you something?" Veers turned his head to the older rebel who now was escorting him. Lana still refused to stand near him or even acknowledge him with anything other than a glance. He understood why though. She still probably believed he was her brother's killer even though he had not pulled the trigger or gave the order.

"What?" Sid answered.

"Who was the pilot that destroyed the Death Star?"

The group stopped to stare back at the Imperial. Sid had a look on his face that told Veers the old man was considering whether he should give that information or not. Veers figured the reason why he was so hesitant was in fear of the possibility that the Imperial might somehow escape and leak that information to his superiors, thus endangering the life of the pilot ten-fold.

After a moment Sid continued walking, prodding his grimy prisoner with a blaster to continue ahead of him.

"I only ask out of curiosity." Veers continued over his shoulder. "I mean, he would be just as equal of a murderer as Governor Tarkin was."

"That is a hero you are slandering." Sid warned and pressed his blaster into Veers back hard enough for the Imperial to wince from the pressure.

"Hero or no, he still murdered a million men and women who were only doing their job." Veers pointed out.

"Job?" Jaxon said from ahead. "You call destroying worlds and instilling fear into the galaxy a job?"

"I lost good friends and colleagues." Veers snapped back. "Men and women who were Academic lecturers, who's job was to train the troops on board the space station. Soldiers and pilots trained to protect the Death Star from the likes of your kind. Technicians and engineers assigned to maintain and man the station. Those were their jobs and mine!

"If anyone around here that is destroying worlds and terrorizing the galaxy it is you three and your rebel insurgents! How many families have lost their loved ones because you killed them? How many families have lost their jobs and economies devastated because someone had the bright idea to blow up a building? You can combine all the things your little rebellion has done and it would total greater then what Grand Moff Tarkin had committed."

"Tarkin's crime will always be greater than what we can do in a lifetime." Jaxon argued.

"Have you ever considered that you are responsible for Alderaan's destruction from the very beginning?" Veers pointed out and shoved a finger into Jaxon's chest. The rebel looked appalled at the accusation for a second before glaring maliciously at the Imperial. Jaxon shoves Veers away from him. "You hadn't! If you had not started your insurrection, there would be a very good chance Alderaan would still exist!"

"Tarkin destroyed my world! Not the rebellion!" Jaxon shouted back. He was now being pulled away by Lana to prevent a fight from instituting.

"No! The rebellion is just as much responsible as the Governor is! You started the chain of events that resulted in the destruction of your world! You started it, Tarkin finished it!"

"Shut up!" Sid shouted and slammed the butt of his pistol in the back of Veers skull to silence him. The Colonel fell to his knees and cuffed hands. He groaned and shook his head of the pain at the base of his skull. The older rebel grabbed the Imperial by the arm and began half dragging him along as the group pressed forward for the crash site.

"One more word out of you about Alderaan and I will let Jenos have his way with you." Sid warned as the Colonel regained his senses and began walking on his own again. Sid shoved Veers forward, pressing for him to walk faster.

The rest of the journey to the crash site was in silence. Neither Jaxon nor Veers spoke again about Alderaan or any other subject concerning the morality of the Empire and the Rebellion. It was apparent to Veers that it was not wise to anger the elder rebel. As he concluded from observations of Jaxon and Sid. Jaxon gave Sid the occasional glance, almost like a boy trying to say 'it was not my fault he started the argument'. Sid would return that glance with his own irritated glare. 

Or maybe he was putting too much into a small thing? Whatever it was, Sid was going to be as much of a problem as Jaxon was. The rebel was the only thing between him and Jaxon and should he suddenly lose the meager protection he got from Sid because he had ticked the man off...

Well the future would look pretty grim for him that is for certain.

After a day and a half of travel since his capture, they finally arrived at the Imperial shuttle crash site. "I just can't seem to get away from this place." He comments upon arriving at the site.

It had not changed one bit since he was last there four days ago. _Has it been that long?_ He thought as he took a glance around the place. There was the tree trunk he had hid behind; the scorch marks were still there from the blaster shots that had been meant for him. The shuttle-made gorge still looked as it did except in the area where blaster bolts had dug into the dirt and he had climbed out from to make his escape.

The shuttle still looked as it did when he had ran from it in fright for his life and later out of pure fear from the grisly sight inside. The only thing that was different was that this time there was no identical Imperial shuttle with the Rebel insignia on its dorsal fin. In its place was a troop transport and an alien with a human, or what looked to be a human, standing next to the transport. The alien was the same Wookiee he had encountered the last time he had been here. The _human_, Veers concluded, apparently was the Wookiee's companion and was the same one he had shot while making his escape.

Now that he had the time, the Colonel studied the human carefully. She was tall and slender. She wore cloths that did not identify her as part of the rebellion. Her hair was braided in several strands and decorated with some kind of bead. She had the strangest pair of boots that did not follow the shape of her feet like his own did. At the heels of these boots were two claw like protrusions. The purpose of these, Veers could only guess.

The Wookiee roared something in his language as the group approached the transport. The female human next to him laid a hand on his furry arm, as if she understood what the Wookiee had said and was trying to mediate the problem before it began. Maximilian Veers did not like the snarl on the furball's face and wondered if the threat he had received earlier had anything to do with the female. 

Sid escorted the Imperial Colonel toward the rebel transport and the Wookiee woofed a comment at the approaching group. "No, Raanarraaka, his time will come later." The elder rebel replied.

"You understand him?" Veers asked the obvious. "What did he say?"

"Yes, I understand him." Sid replied and pushed Veers up the boarding ramp of the transport. "You had harmed his ward, Leilonia," he gestures toward the female standing next to the Wookiee, "and feels that it is his right to pull your arms out."

"So that is why he broke off the chase." Veers muttered under his breath. Raan sniffed and growled an incoherent phrase in Shyriiwook at the Colonel. To Veers it sounded almost like the Wookiee wanted to eat him. _I wouldn't be surprised_. He thought and sniffed indignantly in reply.

"I am so glad this dang mission is over with." Jaxon said as he entered the ship and helped escort the Colonel into the passenger compartment. He took great pleasure in securing the Imperial to one of the seats.

"I'll be glad to be rid of you." Veers sneered, trying not to grimace as the young rebel purposely tightened his restraints.

"Oh no. You won't have gotten rid of me that easily, Imperial." Jaxon replied with a sinister smile. "I'll be there to execute you after High Command finds you guilty for your crimes against the galaxy."

"Fat chance that will happen." Veers said defiantly.

"Jaxon." Sid called warningly and motioned for the Alderaanian to sit down. "Just watch him."

"Yeah, yeah." Jaxon sat down on the side bench and held a blaster ready in a lazy manner. Veers noted the overconfidence in the young man. He knew Jaxon probably believed that he had restrained the Colonel just enough that he would not be a threat. 

__

I shall enjoy proving him wrong.

__

Use him to escape before they reach the Great Temple. He heard Exar Kun whisper to him. Maximilian lifted his gaze slightly and concentrated on listening to his _Master_. He has yet to get use to calling someone, especially a dead Sith, Master.

Even if I could influence him, what about the Wookiee and that girl? 

__

Trust me. Exar replied. _Use the only advantage you have over the blockhead._

__

Ah. I see. Veers understood where Kun was going when he meant to influence Jaxon. He heard the engines of the transport start up. The whine of the engines' crescendos to its peak and the Imperial could feel the transport lift off the ground. He did not have much time left before he was finally in the Rebellion's hands completely.

He could feel Leilonia's eyes on him as she studied him. Something about her told him to tread carefully when making his escape. The Wookiee was silent and also watched him. Veers had never felt so much malice and suspicion on him all at once before. For once in his life, he wished he were not an officer of the Empire. He did not enjoy having so many people hate him because he served a government they believed was evil and corrupt.

He let out a soft sigh as he prepared to play on Jaxon's emotions. "You know. Now that I think about it, I praise Grand Moff Tarkin for destroying Alderaan. The people are nothing but a bunch of stuck-up snobs anyway."

"Shut the frell up, sithspawn." Jaxon snapped and lifted his blaster a little less lazily.

__

Must keep him from using that thing.

__

Leave that to me. Exar said and Veers wondered how the ghost was going to accomplish that.

"See what I mean?" Veers continued. "They think the entire galaxy owes them everything. Well I say the galaxy is better off without their lot." The Wookiee roared a warning at the Colonel, but he ignored it. He noticed Leilonia tilting her head to the side lightly as she still studied him.

"You should not be talking, Corellian." She finally said and Veers now understood why he felt so uneasy with her watching him. She apparently had a talent for figuring out whom you are and where you are from by just watching and listening to you.

"I beg your pardon?" Veers said. "I am not a Corellian."

"You're accent says otherwise." She replied. "Corellians were always a bunch of reckless fools."

"I live there, but by birth I am not a Corellian." Veers corrected in annoyance. He was not supposed to be receiving the insults and end up angry. "What are you? You are obviously not human."

"I am as human as you are." She replied, offended at being implied she was an alien. "I am a Lorrdian."

__

Uh oh, this could be a problem. He had heard of the Lorrdians back at the Academy during a psychology class. The instructor was teaching his class at the time about reading facial expressions and gestures and how you could use it to understand a person or their intentions. It was where he learned about the Lorrdians and their uncanny ability to read expressions and gestures. And how they used that ability to rebel against their slave masters, the Argazdans.

He would have to really tread carefully around her. If he so much as twitched or smirked the wrong way that reveals his intentions to her, he was doomed. _But I can't give up now. I am not a quitter._

"So you know where I have been living these past years." He shrugs in his crash webbing. Veers returned his attention back to Jaxon. He needed to anger the rebel to do what he wanted. "As I said, Alderaanians are nothing but stuck up, rich snobs with nothing better to do then complain and rebel when they don't get their way."

"Imperials are a bunch of arrogant reeks." Jaxon snapped back pathetically.

"The one that is arrogant around here is you, Alderaanian!" Veers replied back calmly. He added an annoying smirk to his passive expression to egg Jaxon on. "A pity you did not die along with the rest of them."

"Pity you didn't die with the rest of your evil kind." Jaxon retorted as he stood up. He waved the blaster in Veers' direction dangerously and the Colonel thought that the rebel might use it.

"Then why don't you finish the job where your pilot friends failed."

"Gladly." Jaxon lifted his blaster and the Wookiee roared at him. The rebels exchanged glances and words. "Fine. I won't use the blaster then! I'll just choke the life out of him."

"Another trait of the Alderaanians." Veers quickly put in before Jaxon could move to throttle him. "Cowardice and lack of honor!"

"Like you know anything about that." Jaxon snapped.

"You want to kill me! Then kill me like a man!" Veers shouted back and pulled against his crash webbing for added affect. "Release me and kill me in a honorable fight!"

"Jaxon don't." Warned Leilonia. She began to slowly stand up, as she finally understood what the Colonel was trying to do. 

And it was working too. 

Jaxon ignored the Lorrdian as he shoved his blaster into Veers jaw and undid the webbing's clasps. "I'm tired of hearing your crap." The rebel hissed at Veers as the last clasp came undone. "I'm gonna beat some respect into you and when I'm done you won't ever slander the name of my people ever..."

He was cut off as Veers shoulder slammed into his stomach.

Jaxon yelped in surprise as both he and the Colonel fell away from the seats and into the compartment bulkhead. Before Jaxon could respond to the surprise attack, Veers uppercut the young rebel in the chin with both cuffed fists, sending him crumbling to the floor with a pained groan. An enraged Wookiee battle cry howl was the Imperial's only warning before he found himself slammed against the adjacent wall.

The world exploded in a flash of bright white light and quickly followed by a searing pain in the back of his skull. It felt like someone had taken a sonic-sledge hammer and smashed it against the base of his skull. The compartment tilted and sagged as he tried to regain some footing underneath him. Raan approached with a deadly purpose and a shouted warning in Veers mind from Exar Kun saved his life from a huge, clawed swipe from the furred alien.

Veers rolled out of the way and climbed back to his feet. He saw, out of the corner of his perceptual vision, Jaxon stand back up with a look of pure rage on his face. The young rebel charged, climbing over the set of seats in his path and leapt at the Colonel. But Veers denied the rebel a successful leap and tackle. Jaxon flew through the air and was propelled into the bulkhead as his target side stepped out of the way and grabbed him by the shirt, flinging him forward in the process.

Jaxon once again crumbled to the floor, but this time unconscious and with a nasty cut on his forehead. Veers had no time to gloat over his small triumph. The Lorrdian came at him with a sidekick that connected with his chest, an audible crack was heard as Veers already fractured ribs finally snapped under the pressure. Unable to breathe, he found himself assaulted by a determined Leilonia. She came at him with a semi-roundhouse kick that he tried to block with his forearm, but the protrusions on her boot ankles sliced cleanly through his jacket and flesh.

__

Now I know what those things are for. He thought grimly as he fought for air and clutching his injured arm to his stomach as best as he could for someone who is restrained. Leilonia did not stop, she attacked him with a front kick that sent him stumbling backwards into the cockpit door. Dazed and hurting, Veers straightened his posture just as the door behind him hissed open. 

"WHAT is going on in here!" He heard Lana demand in a very irritated voice behind him. A Wookiee roar cut off Leilonia's reply as the big alien pushed her aside and slammed into Veers. Raanarraaka, Veers, and Lana fell back into the cockpit.

"What the frell!" Sid exclaimed from the pilot's seat, staring flabbergasted at the tangle mess between him and the co-pilots seat. Veers struggled with the Wookiee, the impact had done something inside his chest and he could breathe once again. 

__

Kun! Help me, kriffit! Maximilian Veers yelled at the dead Sith Lord. Raan had wrapped his hands around the Colonel's throat and was choking him with strength that if it did not relent soon; Veers' windpipe would be crushed. 

"Raan!" Sid shouted and received an irritated roar in response. "Stop!"

The Wookiee continued to throttle the Colonel with determination. Veers was just as determined to free himself of the alien's grasp. As Lana had moved out from under Veers, he had stopped struggling in trying to loosen the Wookiee's grip. Instead he reached for Lana's sidearm and grabbed onto the leather holster.

"Hey!" She shouted when she felt her blaster slip free of its holster. A blaster whine and a deafening pained roar were heard. The Wookiee let go of Veers and sat up in pain, a smoking wound stained its fur-covered body. A second shot impacted the alien in the face and Raan fell over backwards, two scorching wounds marking its death.

"NOOOoooo!" Shouted the Lorrdian.

Veers coughed as he stood. He pointed the blaster at Leilonia but she paid no heed to the weapon and kicked at him. Her foot impacted against his hand holding the blaster and a ruby blaster bolt ricocheted through the cockpit before it finally smashed into Sid's controls. Veers felt the ship take a sudden plunge after sparks danced and flew across the flying controls.

"You fool!" Sid shouted and turned in his seat to grab for the weapon. "You destroyed the controls!"

"Good!" Veers replied. He pushed against the console as gravity tried to press him against it. The ship began to shake and the familiar whine of a ship free falling through the sky is heard. Lana attempted to get into the co-pilots controls but Veers stopped her short with a blaster bolt to the arm. 

"I am not going to become a prisoner of the rebellion!" He shouted over the noise. "I would rather die and take you with me than rot in some slime hole you call a cell!" 

The ship shook hard as it clipped a tree, everyone not restrained were tossed aside. Veers blaster went clattering and settled underneath a seat. He moved to grab for it but found himself floating in mid-air as if he were out in space without artificial gravity. The view outside the window was a spinning mass of swirling sky, earth, and trees as the transport plunged to earth.

"You are going to get your wish, Imperial!" Leilonia hissed at him, grabbing onto Veers injured arm and pulling him to her. "But you can go first! At least then I will have the pleasure knowing you are dead before me."

"Quit wasting my time." He replied just before impact. Both he and Leilonia were thrown through the cockpit door and back into the passenger compartment. The transport screeched and snapped through trees as it skidded across the earth in a mad dash. When it was over with, a lengthy trail of upturned ground and snapped trees traced its fatal trajectory.


	18. Tomb of Fire

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Part III

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Struggle

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Chapter XVII - Tomb of Fire

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DAY FIVE

The blood was rushing to his head and pooling in his thick skull, giving him a headache like no headache ever before. Maximilian Veers could feel his limbs going numb from the lack of life giving oxygen provided by the crimson cells. A swirling black cloud of smoke, which he also choked on each time he tried to breathe, obscured his vision. From what he could tell through the smoke a leg was entangled with a seat's crash webbing. It was the only thing that kept his hanging form from crashing to the twisted and sharp edged ceiling now floor. 

He had to get out of there and soon otherwise, he knew, he would suffocate on the oily black smoke or worse burn to death from the fire that was burning somewhere in the ship. Veers grabbed onto a dangling strap of the crash webbing and pulled himself up so that he could untangle his leg. He could not remember how he ended up in this position or back in the passenger compartment. At the moment he really did not care how, his concern was just to get away from the soon-to-be tomb. 

He held onto the webbing with his good arm as he yanked and pulled with his leg in an attempt to get free. Veers struggled with the crash webbing for what felt like eons. As more time seemed to pass to him, the more he struggled to get free and the more he began to choke on the dirty air. He knew he was going to die of suffocation first before he burned if he did not get his leg free. 

With a twist of his ankle, his booted foot slipped free of the crash webbing and Veers involuntary flipped to hang from the webbing by a hand. He dropped the remaining two feet of space between him and the jagged floor and made a dash for the ramp switch to leave the dead shuttle. The Colonel slammed the heel of his hand into the switch and heard gears and pistons groan and hiss in protest as the machine attempted to open its mouth.

The ceiling parted slightly to allow a slash of light penetrate the oily smoke but was soon partially obscured as the smoke found its way through the small opening. Maximilian Veers squinted his eyes at the light and then stepped toward it. His foot brushed up against something soft and the Imperial instructor cast his eyes downward to see what he had hit. 

Veers choked on the smoggy atmosphere in the shuttle cabin from shock at seeing the sight of a bodiless head. Coughing, he knelt down beside the head and turned it over to see who it was that had been unfortunate to die by decapitation. He felt no remorseful emotions as he recognized the face of the Lorrdian. The woman's terrified and shocked expression was frozen in place by her facial muscles constricting permanently in place upon death.

"Looks like Death favored you more than me." He choked and pushed the head away before standing again. Veers stepped up to the ramp above him and grabbed on to the opening. It was wide just enough for him to squeeze his body through, but it was going to be a tight fit. Before he could pull himself up, a hand grabbed onto his ankle.

"What the..." He exclaimed at the hand and followed the arm to the owner. "You."

"Please...help me." She pleaded and choked on the air.

"Why should I? You would have left me to die." Veers began to turn away.

"And so you would do the same and be all that you claim we are?" Lana jabbed at him and he stopped reaching for the edge of the opening. "Some tough and compassionate Imperial. Ha. More like the ruthless and uncaring warmonger my people keep saying your kind are."

He cringed. 

Something in the back popped loudly and a burst of flames shot forth from the engine compartment. The fire was beginning to spread rapidly now and neither of them had much time to continue to debate about his moral conscience. 

"Fine. Leave me to burn." She said in resignation.

"Oh shut up." Veers snapped back and began helping her out from underneath a beam and a pile of earth and duristeel. Once he had her out, he lifted her up as best he could with an injured and good arm. Lana grabbed hold of the edge and began pulling herself through the small opening. She was half way through when something else ignited in the engine compartment and sending a river of flame flowing across the uneven surface of the ground.

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Fuel! Veers hurriedly pushed Lana's legs through the opening when he noticed the river of fire flowing in his direction. 

"Give me a hand!" He asked the female rebel as the last of her legs disappeared through the opening. Veers received no response from her nor did he see her reappear again. _She left me!_ He realized and grabbed for the edge.

Suddenly and without warning, the ramp closed on him and nearly clipping his fingers off in the process. The river of fire reached his position and he was forced to fall back in retreat. The fuel fed fire spread across the floor, consuming Leilonia's head. He was trapped and suffocating inside a tomb of fire with no way out. A wall of burning flames blocked the controls to the shuttle ramp.

"Lana!" He shouted for her help and did not really expect her to come back for him. For all he knew, she could have chosen to condemn him by closing the ramp shut again. Veers backed away from the fire and used his arms to shield his face from the searing heat radiating from the flames. With the way to the controls blocked, he had to find an alternate way out or find a way to get to the ramp controls or he would die.

The Imperial chose to find another way out instead of facing the inferno in his way. He made a dash for the cockpit door, hoping that the viewscreen had been destroyed in the crash and providing an escape. When he reached the door and tried to open it both manually and by the control panel, he discovered much to his dismay that the door had been fused shut from the heat. He could feel the door was hot and knew that there was another fire on the other side.

"LANA!" He choked while spinning around to start back toward the ramp. "Lana!" 

Colonel Veers began to choke, as less and less breathable air became unavailable to him. He pulled the rebel jacket over his face, trying to filter out the black smoke. His eyes stung and watered from the tiny specks of ash in the noxious cloud. The Colonel dropped to his knees choking and gasping.

"Exar!" He desperately cried, hoping that the ghastly ghost would come to his summoning and save him from a fiery death.

"I am here." He heard rather than saw the Sith Lord. Veers brought his head up and watched as the flames took on a form and became his Master.

"Help me..." He pleaded.

"Then concentrate, my disciple." Exar Kun replied and motioned toward the controls and the wall of flame. "Focus on the control panel or the fire and visualize how to manipulate either one with the Force."

"I don't have time for these games!" Veers shouted angrily. Here he was dying and the Sith was teaching him the Force.

"Then you will die." And the flames flared upward as the image of Exar Kun disappeared.

"No! Don't leave me in here to die!" He choked and reached out with a hand where the Sith apparition had been. Realizing that Lana and the Dark Lord were abandoning him to die, Veers felt a malicious, scathing rage consume him. 

He tried to think of a solution that would save his life without the help of either one of them. But each time he tried, the danger that was posed to him increased another notch, further trapping him inside the fiery tomb. The thoughts of being left to die further hindered his chances of escaping. 

Veers struggled to stay conscious, as his vision began to swim and his legs weakened beneath him. Sweat poured forth from his skin to briefly soak his clothing before the searing heat of the burning fuel boiled it away. He was ready to accept his fate when he could not think of a way out, "_Ihn Socorri nyeve min bhiq suman ehn nyiad!_" he cursed the two in Old Corellian, "_Halle metes chun, petchuk!_"

Bone shards and tissues of brain exploded from the Lorrdian's broiled skull to splatter everywhere and onto everything, including the Colonel. Upon feeling the brain matter striking his flesh, the intense feelings of rage and abandonment he once harbored faded from his mind. Resurfacing in its place was the deadly problem that he had yet to solve and a solution that he had handed to him. 

Surely the Sith Lord would really not have allowed his new apprentice to die so soon?

Veers recalled the words Exar Kun had tried to tell him. He now understood that the specter had not abandoned him, but had given him the key he needed to make his escape. So while choking for fresh air, the Colonel focused his entire attention on the control panel. He concentrated on ignoring his surroundings and tuned his mind on the task at hand. He envisioned an invisible hand pressing in the controls to open the ramp and struggled to hold on to that image.

Across the compartment and behind the burning flames, slowly the control switches began to react to an unknown force and with a click, the ramp that once had been closed now began to open with an agonizing hiss from the hydraulics. The sound caused Veers to lose his concentration, as he lifted his gaze to the reopened ramp. 

He almost shouted with triumphant excitement at his victory. 

Then someone jabbed a metal slab that belonged to the shuttle in between the opening, preventing the ramp from closing in on itself again. Then the face of Lana appeared much to Veers surprise.

"Come on!" She urged him with a hand and then offered it to him. Without voicing the questions in his head or accusing her of attempted murder, he would address them later, Veers accepted the hand and with her help he was able to escape the fiery death that almost had become his fate.


	19. Dark Confessions

_Well now... when I suddenly got a review after years of not writing to this, I decided to reread this story and what do I discover? I'm missing two chapters that I had written and posted elsewhere! Tut, shame on me for not sharing those chapters here. Although I cannot promise that I'll come back to this soon, I will at least give you those two chapters in the meantime. One day I _will_ finish this story._

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_**Chapter XVIII - Dark Confessions**_

"You almost had it in there." Lana told him after they had walked several minutes away from the burning wreckage. Veers had been coughing the toxic fumes from his lungs along the way and had used the female rebel for support. She still held him up by an arm over her shoulder and her arm around his waist. Lana did not understand why she suddenly now chose to help him. He had been the cause of the shuttle crash and the deaths of four of her friends.

"I would have perished no thanks to you double-crossing me." Veers chastised and pulled away from her.

"What!" She exclaimed in bafflement and was appalled at what the Imperial was implying. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play innocent with me, scum!" Veers snapped and pointed an accusing finger toward her. "You closed the ramp on me before I could begin climbing out after you!"

"You thought I did that?" She replied back in the same tone he was using toward her. "You thought I had closed the ramp just to kill you? If I wanted you dead then why did I help you out! Answer me that question, Imperial!"

"You will address me as Colonel Veers," he snarled and started walking away. Once more he wanted to get away from the crash site before any more rebels showed up to capture him again. After a few minutes of walking and once he had the chance to calm down, he realized that Lana may not have been the cause of the ramp closing on him.

He glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see that she was following him. He had half expected her to stay with her dead comrades and wait for help to come. _Maybe she still thinks I am her prisoner,_ he thought_, and she has to stay with me_? Veers knew they both were unarmed and he could easily overpower her and make her his prisoner instead.

"Why do you still follow me?" he asked.

Lana looked over in his direction and away from a woolamander that had been lumbering through the foliage nearby. "Why do you care?"

"You could have stayed at the shuttle until your friends showed up."

"And wait to become some predators next meal?" Lana shook her head several times. "Besides, you are heading toward the Massassi ruins where I have a great deal of many friends waiting there."

"They won't get the chance to capture me," Veers replied and turned his attention back to where he was going. His thoughts drifted to what the female had said to him. _Could she be telling the truth?_ He thought and furrowed his eyebrows in frustration. He knew she had been right about wanting to kill him. If she had wanted to, she could have just left him to die in the burning shuttle. Yet she had not and that left him a little perplexed about the whole thing. _Could the ramp just have closed on itself?_ There was a possibility for it, if the ramp's hydraulics had not been working properly.

He was uncertain as to what had happened with the ramp. All he knew was that it had closed and he was choking on the filthy air and sweating in the scorching heat. Veers had called for Exar Kun's help and the ghostly Sith Lord had materialized before him rather quickly and instructed him on how to get out of the mess he was in. The Imperial Colonel frowned noticeably as a thought struck him like a lightning bolt striking a tree.

_He wouldn't have ... would he?_

After an hour of silence and travel, Colonel Veers slowed his pace so that he could walk side by side with Lana. "You did not close the ramp on me?" he rhetorically asked her.

"I told you before," Lana bitterly replied and folded her arms across her chest. She did not look at him, but Veers could see the grief in her face at the loss of her friends. "Though maybe I should have."

He deserved that.

"Can ... you tell me what had happened then?" he asked. If perhaps she could shed some light on the incident, he might be able to draw some better conclusions and discard other and more ridiculously possibilities. The rebel was silent for several long seconds before she turned her hazel gaze back on him. Her facial expression was quiet but he could still see some of the grief in the curve of her lips, the tightness of her jaw and the firmness of her brow.

"I don't know exactly what had happened," she answered and then lowered her gaze to the ground in front of her. "All I remember is you trying to push me out through the space and then I was turning around to offer you a hand when it ... I guess collapsed and closed on you."

"No sounds of mechanical failure?"

"I don't remember."

"Who were you talking to inside the transport?" Colonel Veers was caught off guard by her question and he opened his mouth to respond but could not find the words to answer her inquiry. He turned away from her and stared ahead of them and concentrated his gaze on a fallen and rotting tree. "Were one of the others still alive?"

He did not like her tone when she asked that. It sounded demanding and accusing to him. Veers shook his head slightly and answered; "No one else was in there except corpses."

"But I heard you speaking to someone," Lana paused for second as she looked at her memories on the crash. "Someone named Exar."

Veers came to a sudden and abrupt halt that surprised Lana. He could see that the rebel realized she had overheard something important while he had been trapped in the shuttle. "It ... is just a ... curse," he stammered over his response. He saw that she did not buy into his answer and gave him an accusing look that suddenly reminded him of the way his wife glared at him when he was avoiding answering her questions about things.

"I know plenty of curses, including Corellian and I know Exar is not one of them."

"It is not important," he lied and started walking again. He brushed past her, storming ahead at a pace that his injuries would allow him.

"It must be if you are avoiding answer my questions about it!" Lana shouted after him.

_Why don't you tell her?_ Veers heard in his ear from his master. The Imperial's eyebrows frowned in annoyance at the intrusion and he shook his head.

_I don't want her to think I am crazy._

_She already does._

_How do you know?_ He bit back sarcastically.

_Who here is the Sith Lord?_ Exar Kun rhetorically asked and Veers could almost see in his mind's eye a smirking ghost.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you anyway," Veers finally said over his shoulder. Lana Cordel caught up with him and walked at his side again.

"Try me," she challenged.

Veers stopped again and turned to face her with a contemplative look on his face. "He is Exar Kun, a dead Sith Lord who offered to help me off this moon." He had expected her to treat his confession as a ludicrous story to avoid in answering her. He had not expected her to recognize what he had told her and wear a horrorific and shocked look on her face. "What?"

"You didn't..." she said at last, sounding astonished.


	20. Ambush

_This is probably the longest chapter nearly 7k words. It was much longer then that due to an M rated scene which I am not very proud of or happy with and only got written because of readers elsewhere asking for it. I still have that scene on my harddrive, so if anyone wants to read it, just ask me and I'll post it on my LJ._

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_**Chapter IXX – Ambush**_

"What?" Veers asked, a little surprised at her reaction. He had expected her to not believe him and dismiss his claim as lunacy. He certainly did not expect her to recognize the name or react in a horrified manner. "You know something about him?"

"He's a Sith Lord!" she exclaimed like he did not know.

"Your point?"

"They're evil, manipulative, lying, killers," she explained.

"He's dead," the Colonel pointed out. "He can do very little to the physical world as a spirit."

"How do you know that? How do you know he can't just kill you with a thought?" Lana challenged and he opened his mouth to explain how he could know.

"I just know," Veers answered hotly. This rebel was becoming just as aggravating as the Alderaanian was. He disliked it when he was questioned and always went on the defensive when someone started poking at his reasoning. When he realized that he was doing it again and growing angry from it, he immediately turned away from the rebel and started down a path that wasn't there before to calm himself.

"You don't know, do you?" the rebel persisted and he could hear her following him again.

She was right. He did not know whether Exar Kun could kill a person while he was a spirit. He only knew that Kun could control animals and create illusions. "Alright. I do not know if he can kill. I just know that he can control animals and make you see things."

"Why do you involve yourself with him?" she asked of him as they walked through the jungle. A woolamander trampled out of the jungle in front of them and took a moment to stare at the two humans before it continued on its path. Veers paused to watch it go before he answered Lana.

"He saved my life. The instructions for that fever reducing tea came from him."

"I was wondering why you had not revealed that information before if you had known all along." Lana was now walking along side with him. "But why would he save your life though? It so... un-Sith like."

"Why do you ask so many questions? This is not an interrogation." Veers replied. He glanced at her and noticed for the first time the injuries she sustained. "That should be taken care of," he pointed at a blood-matted spot among her hair. Lana lifted a hand to feel around her skull and winced when she found the injury.

"It doesn't feel too serious. Probably just a small cut."

"Regardless, it still needs to be dealt with. Out here you can get anything as I learned the hard way," he insisted. "Come on. I think I hear a stream nearby. We can examine each other better in the sunlight and clean out whatever wounds we find."

Colonel Veers broke off of the direction they were going and headed the way he thought he was hearing the trickling of water. Lana agreed to his suggestion and followed him. Where along the last several minutes they had become partners of survival rather than captor and prisoner, she did not know. Nor did she care. It was not like he could leave this planet without the rebellion noticing anyway.

After a thirty-minute walk, the sound of the stream became more pronounced and started to sound more like a river. Another ten minutes and they both emerged from the jungle a few dozen meters from the nearest riverbank. Veers was the first to walk to the edge of the bank to get a better look. The river was slightly fast moving but he suspected it would not be strong enough to sweep a person away.

At least a healthy person.

He was not exactly the healthiest person on the planet right now. His ribcage and breastbone was hurting where the Lorrdian had kicked him and the Wookiee had struck. "We'll have to boil the water before we use it to clean out the wounds."

"After seeing you ill from what was in the water, I agree with you. But how? We do not have any cups."

Veers sighed softly. He knew she was right. Without a container to hold the water there was no way they could boil it first. Then a thought struck him and he began patting down his dirty, flight jacket that he had taken from a rebel the first day he crashed in the jungle. He felt around and after a few seconds he found what he was looking for.

He pulled out a half-empty ration container the rebels had neglected to take from him. "This should work," he said and emptied the contents into his hand. He shared half of the food with Lana and took the rest for himself. Together they built a small fire and he erected a shabby branch holder to place the container over the fire.

They ate what was left of the rations in silence while the first batch of water boiled. The sun was beginning to fall with the gas giant rising over the horizon. The creatures of the night began to emerge and fill the jungle with a soothing symphony of noises. The strange sounds did not bother the Imperial Colonel and it seemed they did not bother Lana either.

"Is it true you really tried to save my brother?" she suddenly asked of him. Veers was caught off guard by the question and took several long moments to find the effort to answer her. He merely nodded in reply and stood up to check the water. "Why?"

"Why?" he repeated, looking up from the ration container. "Do you want to the truth?"

"Yes." He could see her look at him suspiciously and like she did not want to really know the real truth despite her curiosity.

"You won't like it."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Very well. As you already know, I was one of the commanders of the stormtrooper detachment that was sent to deal with the marching activists," he began to explain. Veers sat back down after determining the water was not quite ready yet. "The official story is that someone in the crowd had fired upon the troopers and my superior gave the order to return fire. The truth is, a rock or some object had been thrown at the command vehicle and the Lieutenant Colonel took it as a sign that the marchers were going to turn into a mob. He gave the order to open fire with stun blasts."

He paused in his story telling to take the container off of the fire so that it could cool down for use. "What was suppose to be a peaceful march quickly turned into a panicked riot. People were running everywhere trying to avoid getting stunned and those who had been hit were being trampled to death. Then someone in the crowd actually fired on us and killed one of the stormtroopers. That's when it turned into a massacre. My superior gave the order to set weapons to full power. I tried to countermand that order but angry rioters had overtaken our chariot and I had to flee to safety.

"Eventually the crowd was subdued or dispersed by reinforcing troops from the garrison. Several people were placed under-arrest. Among them was your brother." He paused again to pull off his flight jacket and torn shirt. "Your brother was arrested because he was found armed with a blaster pistol. Under the investigation of the Imperial Army he was just going to be charged with aiding and abetting in the murders of Imperial stormtroopers. He was going to get a trial but the Imperial Security Bureau received word of the massacre and discovered that the march was organized and funded by rebel terrorists. In light of this new information, ISB took over the investigation.

"My brother was not a part of the rebellion. He was only sixteen when the Empire murdered him." Lana angrily interrupted him. He held up a hand for her to stop before she said anything she would later regret.

"I know. I was unofficially a part of the investigation into the Chandrillian Massacre. You have to be nineteen in order to own a blaster and carry the license on you at all times. He was not old enough and did not have a license. Plus the weapon was registered to someone else who was killed during the riot. He most likely picked up the weapon during the riot and felt he needed to defend himself from other rioters. Your brother happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the stormtroopers began arresting people. Help me with my arm, if you would please."

Lana stepped over to him and began to clean the tear in his arm. "Is that why you tried to help him? You found out his role in the whole thing?"

"No. I did not learn about that until after he had been executed."

"Then why?"

"Because..." he hesitated. "Because my career was on the line." Veers hissed when she pressed too hard into his injury.

"You tried to save my brother just so you can save your own frelling arse!" Lana stopped tending to his injury and threw the remaining water into his face. It was not scalding hot and that he was thankful for but it was hot enough to make him uncomfortable.

Veers wiped the water from his face and glowered at her. "What the kriff was that for? Now another batch is going to have to be boiled!"

"What was that for? What was that for!" she hissed back at him. "You did not care a single moment about my brother. You only saw that if he died, your career as an Imperial officer would end! That is what _that_ was for! You ungrateful, self-centered, arrogant Hutt!"

"You asked for the truth!" he shouted back at her. "I told you that you would not like it!"

"I should never have asked," Lana sat herself down on the other side of the campfire and refused to even acknowledge Veers's presence. The Colonel sighed and picked up the empty container and began to refill it with river water. He came back and placed it above the fire once more.

"I'm sorry." She did not respond to his apology and he watched her cross her arms in silent resentment. He did not ask her again to help him with his injuries and tried to care for himself alone. After he finished with his arm, he unwrapped his head wound and felt around to see how bad it may have gotten over the last five days. Veers winced as he felt an infection having started on a part of it and tried to clean it out as best he could.

"If it helps," he said after cleaning the makeshift bandage, "Lieutenant Colonel Haveres was arrested and charged with the murder of several of the rioters and Agent Trell was reassigned to some backwater world where I believe he still is. Your Uncle was very angry when he found out that his nephew had been executed by ISB. He wanted to have Trell shot but Colonel Salves convinced him instead to have the man's career destroyed as an example to others."

"Why didn't he just let my Uncle shoot him?" Lana finally spoke up. "Or was this another one of those career saving moves?"

Veers winced at the tone of her voice and he did not immediately answer. "I do not know if that was Salves motive or not but it did save my career. Governor Corbel was too focused on destroying Agent Trell to pay any notice to me or Salves."

"Sounds like it. What are you doing?" she asked of him when he stepped over and began looking at her head.

"Checking your injury. You want it cleaned and bandaged do you not?"

"I can do it myself. I do not need your help."

"Suit yourself." He handed her the fresh water and sat back down on his spot at the other side of the campfire. She did not move or tried to take care of her injury. Instead she was staring at him and he found it a little uncomfortable. After a few minutes she stood up and walked over him. "What now?"

"Here," she handed him the water. "You were doing a terrible job on yourself." Veers merely stared at her open mouthed and allowed her to undo his bandages and re-clean his wounds and the bandages again. He did not understand why the sudden change in mood. He had thought she would be angry with him for a few more hours and asked her.

"Because you were honest with me and willing to still help me despite my anger towards you," she answered. Veers suspected it was not the whole truth, that there was something more behind her reasons.

He did not question her any further. Instead he allowed her to continue to tend to his injuries. She had unwrapped the torn strips from his arm and once more delicately began to clean out the injury. The seeping blood from the wound had stopped hours ago and all that was left was a raw, open gash she knew was going to become infected if it was not stitched.

This much she told him.

"I have neither a needle or thread," Veers replied and shrugged his shoulders in acceptance. "Besides, any day now the Imperial fleet will arrive and I can swim in bacta for a few hours."

"I suppose so, but that is if we do not recapture again."

"I do not plan on going anywhere near the main temple until after the army has taken over," he pointed out.

"And what about me? I do not want to become a prisoner of war," she asked of him. He did not know how to answer that. He did not want her to return to the temple and tell them where he was before the Empire could arrive. "Why am I asking anyway? It is not like you could stop me from leaving anyway."

"I could if I wanted to," he sniffed indignantly.

Lana gently poked him in the ribs and he hissed in response. "If we got in to a fight, one good blow there would take you down."

"Point taken," he retracted and then became curious. "Alright, you can easily overcome me in a fight eventually, so then why haven't you tried to retake me prisoner?"

"Who says I haven't?" Lana wrapped his arm tightly as she spoke. "Where would you go in your condition? How long will you survive out there alone? You are better off staying with me than going out alone."

"I've survived this long," Veers argued proudly and sat up a little straighter.

"If you are think that your ghost will protect you, than you are quite naïve for an Imperial of your rank." He glowered at her for what he took as an insult. Certainly he had been considering that Exar Kun would help keep him alive and give him the strength he needed to heal, but he was not and have not been relying on the Sith Lord.

"He only helps if I cannot take care of myself," he finally replied and then turned the subject to what they were originally discussing about before they could start arguing over his choice of allies. "Why do you care if I survive anyway? You are healthy enough to make it back to the temple on your own and in my current condition I would only be a hindrance."

The rebel did not answer immediately. She only looked at him for a couple seconds before she looked away. In those seconds he thought he saw her turn a shade red before she glanced away. Veers titled his head to the side slightly in curiosity before he took her face in his other hand and gently forced her to look at him in order to confirm his suspicions.

He saw defiance and embarrassment in her eyes and face when he did that but she did not resist him nor look away again. The Colonel smirked slightly and then without thinking, he leaned forward to romantically kiss her on the lips. At first she did not resist what he had unexpectedly did. She was returning his kiss with as much fervor as he was giving.

As he expected, it did could not last and she broke the kiss by pushing away from him. What he did not expect was for her to slap him across the face. While he was recovering from the surprise and sting of her slap, she demanded why he had done that.

From behind a rubbing hand on his face, he answered; "You refused to answer my question so I took matters into my own hands to find out. I was merely confirming a suspicion I had about you and I was correct."

"And what did you conclude, oh Herlock Sholmes?" she hissed icily.

"You have feelings for me." She laughed sharply and he could detect the nervousness behind it. Veers waited for her to regain her composure before he continued. "Looking back, I now noticed all the signs of a woman who has come to like another man despite the horrible truths she has learned and the things she has gone through. You were attracted to me when we first met, you said so yourself."

"I was only toying with you," she argued defensively and he shook his head.

"Sure you were," he played. "For a period of time, you hated me because of your brother but that hatred subsided when you learned the truth of my role in his death. You showed concern for me when I was ill and protected me from that Alderaanian blockhead. You could have left me to die after I had caused the death of your companions, but you didn't. You came back for me and helped me out of the crashed shuttle. And now, you tend to my wounds as if we were friends.

"That is stretching it," Lana said. She had begun to check his head in an attempt to distract herself from the subject.

"If you did not have any feelings for me you would not have allowed that kiss to last longer than it did." He saw that he had her cornered with that fact.

"You're head must be more damaged than I thought," she quipped," you're becoming delusional."

"You will know when I become delusional when I start speaking non-sense about my colleagues." She had finished checking his head and had it wrapped up in the cleaned strips again.

"And when you keep on insisting I'm in love with you."

"Uh huh, keep telling yourself you're not," he replied with an amused smirk when he saw her smiling at him.

"Shut up and kiss me again, mudfoot."

And so he did.

* * *

Something wet and rough was licking at the edges of his bandages, moistening his face and awakening him with a start. The offending creature scurried off into the underbrush with an undignified twerp. He could still see the glow of its reflecting eyes between the leaves of the plants and could imagine how disappointed and upset it felt that what it thought was tasty food was still alive.

Veers turned his gaze away from the animal to study the unclothed form of his... captor, prisoner, companion, or lover? He did not know which of the descriptions to call her. Certainly the last one seemed to fit in the last several hours and he wondered what had come over him to give in to such primitive indulgences with the enemy. For a brief moment he seemed abhorred at the idea of an Imperial officer sleeping with the enemy. It was almost akin to conspiring with one.

Slowly he pulled himself apart from her tousled form and climbed to his feet with some difficulty. Stretching his sore muscles, he took a look at his surroundings. There was nothing different from last night other than a few new tracks of animals coming to the riverbank either for food or to drink the water. The jungle seemed to have left them pretty much along for the most part.

Veers walked over to the riverbank with the ration can so that they could have some clean water to drink. As he filled the container, he noticed movement underneath the steady moving surface. Some kind of aquatic animal was swimming about his submerged hand. It came close to see what he was and doing before darting to a safe distance. The creature was long and slender, almost the same length as his arm. It had a flat horizontal tail that it used to propel itself through the water. It's dorsal fin ran down the length of its body while it's ventral fin only went half it's body and continued again just before it's tail. It had no maneuvering fins like most other aquatics he had seen. This particular species seemed to move with it's own body instead.

The skin shimmered in what little light came through the canopy as it again came close to investigate the disturbance he made in the water. But this time, two others had joined the first one. Like it's brethren they too darted away to a safe distance when he moved. Not wishing to find out whether they were predators or not, the Imperial Colonel finished and left the riverbank.

Waiting for him back at the small camp they had made was Lana. The rebel was partially clothed as she stroked the fire back to life. As he approached, she looked up from the tiny flames and smiled at him in a way she would not have done the night before.

"You will catch something else other than Creek Fever dressed like that," she commented and he looked at her with a puzzled look before it dawned on him. With his face turning a deeper shade of red, he grabbed his pants and slipped them on.

"Sorry," he apologized as she stifled a giggle. "I was planning on bathing but decided to bring back some water for you to boil first."

"You shouldn't bath in your condition," she reminded him.

"No worries," Veers answered and began unwrapping and rewrapping his arm. "This wrap is watertight and will keep out anything that may be in the water." His reassurance seemed to satisfy her and she did not try to stop him from carrying out his bath. Why he even bothered to reassure her he did not understand. Certainly she had feelings for him, but his own were still with his wife.

"You deceive yourself," the voice of Exar Kun whispered into his ear as Veers made his way back to the riverbank.

"Why would you care?" the Colonel spat, annoyed that the Sith spirit was eavesdropping on his thoughts again.

"Dismissing your true feelings will only distract and hamper your development in the Force," Kun harshly replied.

"I am not exactly sure _what_ my feelings are on this situation so how can I deceive myself?"

"You love her, I can feel it." The bushes rustled and both men ignored the animal that probably was rummaging through it for food.

"I do not," Veers answered coldly. "Any feelings I may have for her stem from the need to survive. There is a war going on right now and we're on opposite sides. We are enemies."

"Strange relationships often form in a time of war. Regardless, you should not ignore your passion for her." The Imperial Colonel slipped out of his cloths and walked into the steady river as the Sith Lord preached to him. "Even though she is your enemy, with the Force you can maker her yours and a loyal follower..."

Veers paused his cleaning to look up thoughtfully. After considering it, he answered, "There is little to no pleasure in forcing another into a union. They only come to hate you and become a threat."

"For a while, yes they are a threat. But given time she will follow you to the ends of the Galaxy. Think it over, my apprentice. You will come to find the benefits of this power will be most useful." With that said, Veers felt the Sith Lord's presence fade away as the spirit went back to whatever dark cesspool he came from.

To his surprise he did consider what Kun had told him, but he did not consider it in the same way the Sith did. Instead he thought about how such an ability could grant him and his men the edge they needed to win battles. To take control of the enemy commander and make him leave a flank open to attack or commit his forces to the wrong location could decide the outcome of a battle. Any of those ideas would certainly benefit the Imperial Army.

And although he considered the possibilities for war, he could not help but stray his thoughts to what Kun suggested. The power certainly would allow him to have any woman he wanted in the galaxy, especially women of high position that could help his stagnated career. Although the idea was appealing, he did not like it too much. He had always been a man of hard work and earning his promotions. He knew it was the reason behind his lack of recent promotions. But if he were to ever play politics, much to his displeasure, he would then need to choose a woman with as much political influence as possible.

"Perhaps a Senator or one of the governors?" He suggested out loud. He noticed the aquatic creatures from before form a curious circle around him but came no closer than little more than a meter, so he ignored them as he continued to ponder the subject of mind control. "No, too high up and snobbish for my tastes. Or maybe a noblewoman instead, I have always wondered what became of Grand General Valorian's daughter." He sighed softly and shook his head. "She has probably married some younger officer or noble by now." He ran a hand through his hair and considered a ridiculous thought, "Perhaps a holoactress then? I always have had a fancy for Wynessa Starflare..."

"What interest she would have in you is beyond my comprehension," a familiar voice sneered and Veers spun around in the river...

"I see you survived the crash, a pity." Colonel Veers held his hands up in surrender. He found himself in the most awkward of situations ever in his entire life. He stood waist deep in the river with his hands held shoulder high, staring unblinking at the young rebel who hated him and the Empire as the man aimed a blaster at him. He could see the joy in the young man's face at how he had caught the Imperial off guard and alone. This time there was no Sid or Lana to stop him from killing Veers.

"A pity you will not be surviving this planet," Jaxon sneered back. Veers could see a pain course through his features. He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the young man more closely. Parts of his clothing were charred and where some of his skin was exposed and on his blaster hand, he could see red inflammations where the Alderaanian had been burned. _He has to be in a lot of pain. He'll be slower and weaker than normal._

"Yeah well, I'm still kicking," the Colonel replied and reached out with a hand. He was disappointed when Jaxon's arm failed to budge to throw off his aim. The only reason Veers was still alive now was the confusion and hesitation on the rebel's part when he made the gesture. Veers took those precious seconds and dove under the surface.

Even beneath the water he could hear the blaster fire and the shots sizzle through the water after him. This part of the river was not deep and he knew Jaxon could still see him and aim. He barely heard the splashing of feet as Jaxon ran into the water after him, firing shot after shot.

Veers resurfaced a few feet away and threw a rock he had found at the rebel. Jaxon easily dodged the projectile and redirected his blaster. "Do you truly believe that by killing me will bring back the thousands that were killed by the Death Star?" In response, Jaxon fired again. The ruby bolt hit Veers in the shoulder and he spun around from the impact, crying out in pain. The Colonel re-submerged as more blaster fire hit the surface where he had fallen seconds before.

He had to get away or the rebel would get in another lucky shot and the next time he knew it would be fatal. But his problem was that he was trapped in the river. If he tried to swim to shore, he would certainly get shot as he climbed out of the water. If he tried to go deeper, the river's current would sweep him away and he would have no chance of staying above water with his wounded shoulder and arm. He was fortunate he could swim at all. His only option was to attack Jaxon and hope for the best. And again he realized he had no safe way of getting near the rebel without getting shot.

And there was the problem of running out of air, which he was on the verge of doing at this moment. Once more the Colonel resurfaced to breathe in fresh air and once more Jaxon shot him at. "Nothing you can say or do will ever redeem the Empire for what it has done to my people and my family!" Jaxon hollered at Veers and he allowed the Imperial to swim a few more feet before he sent another bolt sizzling into the water next to him.

"I was an instructor on board!! A non-combatant! Are you going to blame every single person in the galaxy for Alderaan!" Veers cried as he chose to get closer to Jaxon. If he could keep the rebel from choosing to finally shoot him dead and continue to taunt him with each shot, he could get within melee distance of the young man.

"I will blame every officer of the Empire! I will blame the people who built that monstrosity and I will blame the people who funded it!" he shouted back.

"Then you blame yourself as well! Our taxes built that station and unless you claim you've avoided paying the Imperial Tax Bureau, you are just as much responsible for Alderaan's destruction as I am!"

"You are good at twisting things into lies, Colonel." A blaster bolt sizzled past his ear and electrified the air around where it had passed. Veers reacted instinctively and lunged the last few feet between them, reaching for the blaster. The two men struggled for control of the weapon, a couple more shots went wild into the air and river before Veers was able to knock the weapon out of Jaxon's grip.

"One of us will die today and I intend for it to be you!" The rebel sneered and raced Veers for the sinking blaster pistol. Veers almost reached the weapon first when he felt Jaxon press down against him and keep him submerged. Forgetting about the blaster, Veers struggled to resurface before he ran out of air. Black spots began to form around the edges of his vision as he tried with all of his might to push Jaxon off of him. For a brief moment he feared that the rebel was going to succeed in drowning him when he heard two thunks in the water and the pressure release.

Immediately Veers surfaced and gasped for air, looking for Jaxon and wondering why the rebel had let go of him. To his surprise, he saw the young man holding his bleeding head, his back to him and shouting at something on the shore. Veers looked past Jaxon to see what he suspected was the reason behind his miraculous escape from death.

"Stop this at once!" Lana shouted at Jaxon. Veers figured that she had thrown rocks at him to stop the fight. "Don't do this Jaxon! Sid wanted him alive for interrogation!"

"Then let's interrogate him now or would you prefer to sleep with him one more time before he's incapable?" Veers could see that the jibe had hurt her and it infuriated him. Quickly, the Imperial grabbed for Jaxon and the two men struggled for dominance over the other. They splashed through the river, unknowingly moving deeper and farther from the shore and Lana.

They both could hear her shouting for them to stop fighting but neither man paid head to her pleas. Before they knew it, they both found themselves being swept away by the river's current. It took a force of nature to get them to stop fighting and work to swim closer to the riverbank where the current was not as strong and where they could get a sure footing. But the river was too strong for both of them and Veers was having a difficult time staying above the water.

Instead of fighting the current, Veers chose to swim with it and look for an opportunity to catch his breath and strength. He found one in the form of a boulder jutting out of the foaming surface and made for it. He grunted as he hit the formation hard and scrambled to get a good grip on it. He was barely holding on when Jaxon slammed into him and sent both of them down the river once more.

"This...your fault!" Jaxon gurgled between gasps for air and resurfacing as he struggled with Veers and the current. Veers pushed away from the rebel and grabbed the next boulder they came across. This time he held on tight even as Jaxon slammed into him and the boulder again.

"My fault? I'm not the blockhead here that is insisting on my death!" He shouted over the roaring water.

"At least when I die, I know you will be coming with me!" Jaxon replied with a triumphant smirk. Veers took notice of the river's makeup for the first time. And for the first time since his arrival on this wretched planet, fear gripped him at his core. "That's right! We're heading for a waterfall and judging from the speed and strength of this river, it's going to be a long drop!"

"Then you first!" Veers replied and peeled Jaxon's grip from the boulder they were sharing. The rebel cried out in shock and tried to grab Veers, but the Imperial only shifted his body enough to avoid being caught. He watched as the river swept the rebel away and the young man struggle to stay above the water.

"Good, good," he heard Exar Kun praise from somewhere. "He would have only dragged you to your death had you let him stay."

Veers felt the warmth of shame rush his face and thought about what he had done. By shoving Jaxon off of the boulder he added one more Alderaanian to the numbers that were already killed by the Empire. He knew he was now a participant in the extinction of an entire culture.

"Do not shed a tear for that wretched boy," Kun scolded. "He would have done the same to you and in fact had proclaimed that he would kill you one way or another."

"I had the chance to show him the truth about the Empire..." Veers replied, he noticed his grip was loosening. "About me..."

"And he would not have listened."

The Sith Lord was correct. The rebel would not have listened and even if he had, he would have dismissed everything Veers tried to explain to him. So what was the point in even trying to get through such a stubborn blockhead as Jaxon?

Veers grip slipped slightly on the drenched rock and his thoughts immediately turned to how he was going to escape this predicament. If he let go he would be joining Jaxon at the bottom of the waterfall. If he didn't do something soon he _would_ be joining Jaxon regardless.

"Do something!" He asked of the Sith Lord.

"No."

"What?" replied a perplexed Veers.

"If you are to be my apprentice, you must learn to save your own skin and not rely on me or others to help you or perish," replied the spirit.

"Don't you pull that Arwin Theory sithspit on me!" Veers yelled angrily.

"It is the fundamental truth of the universe and the Force. I will not help you." And with that, the Sith spirit vanished, leaving behind a cold and weakening apprentice hanging for dear life on a rock.

"Maximilian!" he heard his name and turned his head toward the shore.

"Lana!" Veers cried.


End file.
